


Mistaken Damsel

by Emmeebee



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Gen, Multiple Pov, Slight Alternate Universe, Triwizard Tournament, second task
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-31
Updated: 2015-10-10
Packaged: 2018-03-20 12:09:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 32,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3649839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emmeebee/pseuds/Emmeebee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The organising committee is sure that the second task will go according to plan. However, they didn't account for the Delacours, or for Harry's unerring ability to accidentally change the rules for any game he's even in the vicinity of. Slight AU spanning the second task. Written from and focusing on different characters' perspectives. Part 1: the task. Part 2: the impacts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1: Hermione Granger

Despite the Headmaster's calming, unaffected demeanour as he enjoyed the sweets that everybody else had refused, Hermione felt nervous as she surveyed the room around her. Karkaroff and McGonagall stood behind Dumbledore like twin stone gargoyles keeping watch over a courtyard while the three Hogwarts students sat quietly at their desks. No one had anything to say to one another; Cho only knew Hermione and Ron as the slightly odd friends of the boy whom she had turned down, and half of Hermione's mind – and, she assumed, Ron's – was still back in the library with Harry. However unplanned it had been, it felt like abandonment to not be with him at a time like this; she didn't like the thought that he might fail because she and Ron hadn't been there with him. If he were going to fail tomorrow, she wanted to be fighting alongside him right up until he had to jump into that lake.

Hermione had been relieved when the party had taken a detour to find Cho before meeting the Headmaster. Ever since McGonagall had approached them, she had been worried that they were getting into trouble for helping Harry and that her friend might be penalised the next day as a result. What they were doing wasn't technically against the rules, but Harry had the rather unsettling habit of being the exception to such things, and she wouldn't put it past Karkaroff or Maxime to try to nail him for this. However, while the Ravenclaw Seeker _might_ have been caught helping Cedric, it was much less likely than when it was just Ron and Hermione being summoned. And, if they were going to try to drag Harry and Cedric down for this, she could and would level the accusation of interfering at the two foreign professors, which she knew would be seen as a much heavier infringement than the Hogwarts champions enlisting their friends' aid.

Regardless of her reassurance, the whole thing reminded her of that time in primary school when her whole class was put in detention for something she hadn't done and she'd had to sit in the silent room for half of lunch instead of reading the book she'd been given for her birthday. Her teacher had apologised to her afterwards, stating that she had known Hermione hadn't been involved but couldn't show favouritism by letting only one student leave when there were others who were equally innocent, but Hermione had been absolutely quiet in her class for weeks so there would be proof that she wasn't involved if it happened again. Hermione had been impressed with herself for how long she was able to restrain herself from answering the teacher's unanswered questions, although her silent protest had eventually ended when her curiosity had become too great to hold in.

Besides, the fact that Dumbledore was so quiet disconcerted her. He had made light conversation initially, but his disposition had been decidedly more subdued than normal and, after realising that his students weren't feeling comforted, he had reassured them it wouldn't be long and joined them in silence.

She glanced at the clock impatiently. Yearning to be out of a classroom wasn't a normal feeling for Hermione, and she couldn't say she liked the experience. It gave her a new understanding for how Ron and Harry felt when they kept glancing at the time at the end of a particularly complicated lesson. She just wanted this to be over so that they could get back to helping Harry. Professor McGonagall had said that they wouldn't see him again before the next task, but that didn't mean she couldn't think about it and send an enchanted paper aeroplane if she came up with anything.

Finally, Madame Maxime and a small blonde girl who looked like a younger replica of Fleur entered the room. The girl looked proud and excited, a slight smile on her face and energetic sparkle in her eye, and Hermione wondered whether the half-giant had already told her whatever this meeting was about. The gathered assembly had been waiting for the last few attendees before any explanations were given, but she wouldn't put it past either of the other school leaders to tell their students in the meantime.

"Ah, and you must be Gabrielle," Professor Dumbledore said, his voice soothing like the warm softness of a child's favourite blanket. "Please take a seat; get comfortable. You can take a table, too, while you're at it. This classroom is usually unused, so I don't think anybody is particular attached to any of them. And, oh! Ludo Bagman. Excellent. We can now begin."

The ex-Quidditch player had bounded in after the French ladies, looking completely unburdened. He glanced over at Hermione and Ron with an assessing gaze before briefly acknowledging Cho and the other professors. "How is everyone, then?"

A chorus of non-committing variations of 'good' and 'well' sounded their reply.

"Excellent, as Dumbledore said." His voice was cheerful, starkly contrasting with the mood of the rest of the room. It was almost painful in its exuberance, as if they were trying to look at the sun but being blinded by its brightness.

"As horrible as it is to leave such company," McGonagall said wryly, "I'm afraid I have a detention to supervise. A few of my first years decided it would be wise to attempt a spell at the end of their book without first checking what it did." Her gaze shifted to Hermione. "I only hope my older students have more sense than that."

"Words of wisdom for anyone, I am sure," Bagman said dismissively, but Ron and Hermione looked at one another meaningfully as their Head of House departed. For all that Bagman dismissed her message, she apparently thought they were entering a conversation that necessitated such a reminder, regardless of the Headmaster's continued presence.

 _Something's amiss,_ Hermione thought.

"Nobody else has to leave?" Bagman joked. Although he failed to get a response, he continued undeterred. "As I'm sure you're all aware, the second task of the Triwizard Tournament is tomorrow. What you might _not_ know," he said, his eyes fixated on Hermione and Ron apart from brief glances to Cho and Gabrielle, "is that the golden egg from the last task has provided the champions with a clue of what they are going to encounter this time." Hermione didn't react – they'd have known that even if they weren't helping Harry. Even if they hadn't all _literally been told_ it after the first task, the whole Gryffindor common room had been privy to Harry's disastrous first attempt at deciphering the clue. "I am sure that they are all aware by now that the next task is to go down to the bottom of the lake to retrieve something of great value to them." This time, Hermione tried to look surprised, but Bagman was focused on Ron's face; whatever he saw there seemed to relieve him, and he started splitting his attention more equally between the four. "You are no doubt wondering what these things are! Well, it is perhaps more accurate to say _who_ these _people_ are. Yes; you have all been granted the high honour of being chosen to assist in the next task of the Triwizard Tournament." He beamed at them in excitement, and Hermione couldn't help but interrupt.

"You want to send us down there for the champions to fetch. But how?"

"Well, Miss..."

"Granger, sir."

"Miss Granger. You will be put into a kind of magical sleep that will not be lifted until the moment your lungs fill with air once again."

"You would be familiar with the Draught of Living Death, Miss Granger, Miss Chang," Professor Dumbledore said. "Those who agree will be given an extremely diluted and slightly altered form of the potion. Professor Snape has personally overseen its design and brewing at my request."

"It will be completely safe for you, of course," Karkaroff said, and Hermione wondered whether he'd say the same if one of _his_ students were among the party to be sent down there. He probably didn't care all that much about whether the students came up alive, as long as Krum brought her back up satisfactorily. Oh, how it must rankle him that the only Muggle-born in the party was the one whose safety he was the most invested in.

"Of course. Didn't I say that?" Bagman grinned at them jovially, as if forgetting safety concerns was the sort of cool thing that would prove he was a fun adult, not a stuck up one, and win him their favour. "The merpeople will defend you from any aquatic predators. Once the hour has passed, they will bring any remaining hostages to the surface, although, after the splendid performances at the last task, we don't expect any hostages to remain uncollected at the end of the time period."

"Enchantments will be placed on you to protect you from grievance while under the effects of the potion," Dumbledore added, obviously unsatisfied with Bagman's limited explanation. "The only danger for you would be if you breached the surface and then were pulled back under. To safeguard against that, a merguard will follow each champion to the surface so that they can intervene should danger be posed to the hostage, and there will be a number of professors near the water's edge waiting for your arrival."

"There's really no need to say which of you would be the goal of which champion," Bagman continued brightly. "It's fairly self-evident, don't you think?"

"Blimey," Ron whispered to Hermione. "I reckon I'll be down there the whole hour, then."

"Harry will work something out; he always does," Hermione whispered back. Ron started to respond, but Cho's voice cut him off, and his whispered words were lost where no one could hear them.

"What if we said no?" Cho asked, frowning at Bagman. "Theoretically speaking."

"Well, then I'd tell you each who would be rescuing you," he replied, looking and sounding confused at the question. "Obviously."

"No, I meant to participating in the task in the first place."

"If you weren't comfortable helping your champion – I'm sorry, that's the wrong choice of words; if you weren't comfortable _participating_ with your champion – then we would find a replacement for you. You would still have to remain in confinement overnight, of course, in case any of the contestants haven't figured it out yet, but you'd be allowed to head down to the lake to bid him – or her – off in the morning."

"If the worst came to pass and nobody agreed, Miss Chang, we could just have a waterproof sign with the champion's name on it," Dumbledore assured her, twirling the end of his long white beard around his index finger as he spoke. "There is no pressure whatsoever for any of you to participate."

 _It almost sounds like he'd rather we take that option,_ Hermione thought.

"Why don't you do that to begin with, then?" Ron asked. "Why does it matter what's done there? It's just throwing a different kind of stick for them to fetch, really."

"It matters because it is _traditional_ ," Madame Maxime responded, her voice condescendingly stressing the last word as if she doubted that anyone present besides her knew how to properly follow tradition, "for any tasks involving the champions saving something to have the objective being their... _beloved_. The Yule Ball therefore traditionally had the purpose of both being a celebration for the champions and an opportunity to discern who such beloveds would be. Neither Mr Potter nor Miss Delacour were seen to enjoy their time at the Yule Ball, so replacements have had to be found."

"Well," Bagman said, trying to take back the reigns of the conversation once again. "What are your decisions?"

"I want to help my sister." Gabrielle's voice was strong and determined; regardless, there was an unsteadiness about it.

"If the Headmaster is sure it's safe," Hermione said, meeting the eyes of the wizard in question, "then I don't see why not." Besides, it was utterly fascinating. She knew she wouldn't remember any of it, or that she shouldn't remember any of it, but it was the closest she was likely to ever get to a colony of merpeople. The anthropologic benefits of that alone…

"Sure," Ron grumbled. "Still reckon you should do the sign thing, though."

Cho shrugged. "Like Hermione said, as long as it's safe… I mean, it's not like we're going to see anything anyway if the whole task takes place underwater."

"Good! We won't administer the potions until just before dawn. Don't want them wearing off now, do we?" Catching the expressions on his companions' unimpressed and horrified faces, Bagman quickly added, "Not that there's actually any chance of that; it won't wear off for a few hours unless you breach the surface. Anyway, you'll spend the night here – we'll transform it into a dormitory, of course, and connect it to the amenities next door – under supervision."

"Which colours would you like your bedspreads to be?" Dumbledore asked. "Miss Chang?"

"Erm, whichever," she replied shyly. At his encouraging look, she added, "Blue, if that's alright."

Once he had extracted similar instructions from the others, Dumbledore transformed the room into a spacious dormitory with five four-poster beds, two of which were sectioned off from the others with a retractable screen. A door materialised connecting the reappropriated classroom to the bathroom next door, which, he explained, was no longer accessible from the outside corridor. Two house-elves were sent off to collect enough personal effects for them for the night. Not long afterwards, Percy Weasley arrived, and the delegates started to depart, leaving him behind to supervise the children.

Ron chortled quietly at the thought of his pompous brother essentially being assigned to sleepover supervision duty. "Wonder how he'd tell people about it; supervising special guests, maybe?" he muttered to Hermione, bitterness tinging his tone.

Bagman gave Hermione and Ron another assessing look before he left, seeming displeased with what he found. Dumbledore, the last to leave, lingered to exchange a few words with the older Weasley brother before sweeping his gaze over the four seated children on the way out, giving them what seemed to be an uncharacteristically forced smile.

"Is it just me," Ron whispered to Hermione, not wanting his brother of all people to overhear, "or is Dumbledore worried?"

" _Professor_ Dumbledore," Hermione reminded him. "And I was hoping it was just me, actually. He doesn't like this. Neither did Professor McGonagall."

"I caught that too." They looked around in surprise to find that Cho had moved over beside them. "I don't think they'd let us go down there if it weren't safe – "

"You'd be surprised," Ron muttered, low enough that not even he himself heard the words.

" – but they don't like it, either."

Ron looked up at the sound of his brother's voice, before relaxing when he realised that it was directed at the younger girl. He didn't want to have to sit through Percy bragging about his position again – it was bad enough when it was a letter that he could rip up or burn; it was almost intolerable when there was no way to escape unnoticed. "Then again, they wouldn't, would he? Not with _her_ going down there. No one in their right mind would want to risk her like that."

"She is a bit young," Hermione agreed. "I don't know what Madame Maxime was thinking to ask her to do this."

"Not that. Well, yes, that too. But not just that. It's because she's part-Veela, isn't it?" Grimly, Ron waved a hand around as if that magically explained everything. However, the two girls' reactions were completely different; Cho looked horrified, while Hermione just tilted her head in confused curiosity.

"What does being part-Veela have to do with anything?" Hermione asked. She'd been meaning to research Veelas ever since the World Cup, but she hadn't yet gotten around to more than a perfunctory look at her woefully uninformative Care of Magical Creatures textbook. Nothing else had been available to her initially, and then, by the time she was back at school and had access to the library, she had gotten distracted by schoolwork and the ever-present task of keeping Harry alive.

"Possibly everything," Cho said, a dismayed look on her face.


	2. Part 1: Michel Delacour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much brother. Such beta. Thank.

Despite the knowledge that the tournament could be and had previously been deadly, Michel Delacour wasn't really concerned with his daughter's role in it. He didn't particularly like watching her throw herself into danger, but it had been her decision, and he was sure she was wise and experienced enough to make it through. Her resourcefulness in the first task had impressed him – it hadn't worked properly due to circumstances outside of her control, but it would have been stunningly simple yet effective had those circumstances been different. He felt certain that she would continue to succeed in the next two tasks, even if she didn't come first.

Her goal, after all, wasn't to win the tournament; it was to prove herself as a force to be reckoned with even in a manufactured environment where her parents' influence meant nothing. She had been seen for all of her life as either the part-Veela who wasn't interested in humouring her followers' romantic interest or as the daughter of one of the most influential politicians in France, and she wanted to be seen as somebody else, somebody talented in her own right, for once. And, as far as he and his fellow French delegates were concerned, she was succeeding.

He first started to worry when he realised that the conglomeration of spectators was heading down to the large, murky lake. The knowledge that it wouldn't lend itself well to the voyeuristic nature of the tournament temporarily assayed his fears, but, as they drew closer and closer to its shore and the alternate possibilities grew scarcer, he eventually had to face the fact that the second task was somehow related to the water. At least his eldest daughter knew her strengths and limitations and would be able to recognise the time to bow out gracefully.

Turning to his wife, who was quietly discussing measures to decrease countries' recidivism rates with her friend Amelia, he waited for a break in their conversation and said, "I imagine Fleur and Gabrielle will be along shortly. I'll wait for them here if you would like to reserve some standing space for us."

"Tell Fleur to stay safe," Apolline instructed him, glancing over at the lake with a frown. He had held onto the hope, however misguided he knew it was, that she would be unaware of the perils that faced their daughter, but she knew more of them than he ever could.

"And that I wish her good fortune," Amelia added. "I'm sure she's as prepared for this as she is for everything, so it's just a matter of what they each come up against down there. To tell you a secret, I'd quite like her to win, however unpatriotic that may sound. Everyone assumes she's at a disadvantage because she's a blonde girl, but I know she has it in her. It was really just chance that went against her last time."

"I'll pass both messages on." Michel heard them discussing Amelia's niece as they walked away, and focused his attention on keeping an eye out for his daughters. Approximately ten minutes elapsed before a glimpse of the familiar bright locks ended his vigil, and he pushed forward through the enthralled onlookers until he reached Fleur's side. Ignoring the crowd, he pulled her into a tight hug, although he did switch to French in order to give their conversation some privacy. "Hello, my dear."

"Good morning, Papa."

"Where's your sister?"

"I thought she was with you." She tried to pull back, but he kept her in his hold, not wanting her to see his increasingly worried expression.

"She must have gotten waylaid on her way back, then. When did you last see her?"

"At lunch yesterday. We ate together, and then she went to find you. Did she not get there?"

"It's alright," he said calmly, although it really wasn't. Schooling his expression into one of slight concern and pride, he finally released her from the hug. "She mustn't have been able to find you, that's all; she probably found something interesting to sketch and lost track of time. I'm not looking forward to how cross she'll be if she doesn't get here in time to see you start, however."

"She does do that a lot," Fleur admitted, although the scepticism in her voice was all he needed to hear to know that she wasn't fully convinced. The only negative of surrounding yourself with intelligent people, in his opinion, was that it made you much less likely to successfully fool them and much more likely to be successfully fooled. While he was blessed to be surrounded by so many witty, insightful people, it made any sort of deception into a game of chess against someone just as, or sometimes more, experienced and knowledgeable as you.

"Don't worry about it; just focus on yourself. Do you feel ready?"

"Mostly. I've been practicing casting spells underwater, but my power and scope is still significantly lessened by the environment. I should be fine, but..."

"Well, I feel the need to remind you that your life is worth more than any competition, although I've no doubt you already know that. Also, before I forget, your mother said to stay safe, and Madam Bones said to tell you she wishes you good fortune and believes you're as likely to win as anyone else. And that she personally would like you to win."

"Champions, in your places! This is the first call! Champions, come to the end of the jetty, please!"

"Be careful," Michel said, kissing the top of her head. He quickly cast a quiet spell to leave a little orb of light behind that would hone in on Gabrielle when she entered its vicinity and lead her to wherever he was, noting Fleur's smile as she recognised its purpose.

"Tell them I am grateful," Fleur replied. "And tell Gabrielle not to worry that she's late – you're just going to be staring at water for an hour, anyway."

"Perhaps they're trying to encourage introspection; why, exactly, are we all watching a tournament that is frankly a little outdated, very dangerous, and, in this case, not even something we can see?"

"Some people here need it." Fleur darted off towards the indicated spot. The crowd parted to let her pass, recognising her as the champion, and he slipped through behind her before they could fill in the gap once more. She quickly hugged and greeted Apolline and Amelia as she passed them, before lining up alongside Viktor Krum, the only champion who had already arrived. Neither of them made a move to make conversation, both seemingly content with the rare moments of peace. Stepping into place next to Apolline, Michel conveyed what Fleur had told him about Gabrelle in a quickly whispered string of French, not wanting anybody else to overhear. Apolline's proud smile became forced as she relayed the information to Amelia before resuming their previous conversation, biding their time until the task commenced and they could sneak off without Fleur noticing. Cedric Diggory joined them a few minutes later, just in time for the second call, and shortly after that Harry Potter pelted down the shore and through the gathered people to finish the gathering.

Just before the champions dove into the water, Michel caught his daughter glancing at the glittering orb still floating near the shoreline with a disconcerted look on her face.

Yes; however much he enjoyed her intelligence, he sometimes, very occasionally, wished she were easier to protect and placate.

As soon as her feet disappeared beneath the water, he and Apolline made their excuses and darted away to find the Beauxbatons Headmistress. If Gabrielle hadn't gone to stay with Fleur the night before, as the Headmistress had confirmed that morning, Maxime would hopefully know where she had wound up. Gabrielle wasn't the type to lie about her activities, so Maxime either hadn't heard it from her or had hidden the truth for some reason of her own. They passed groups of students, and nervous family members, and supervising professors, and interested members of the public, but noted a common theme throughout all of the attendees: now that the champions had gone under and out of sight, nobody seemed to know quite what to do. As time continued to pass, people grew fidgety and increasingly aware of the fact that their next hour was going to consist of standing around waiting for people to return, and a gradual shift occurred as they started looking for place to sit that would still be close enough for them to see the champions' return.

The professor they sought out towered above the crowd, a lighthouse shining a beacon out amidst the rocks of misdirection and distraction. It aided their weaving, letting them focus on actually navigating their way through the crowd rather than constantly reconfiguring their path. Before too long, they safely made their way to shore.

Of course, the oncoming storm at their heels was not directed at them, nor did it stop when the wet sand became dry sand, or when it in turn melted into the grass beyond the beach.

Michel greeted the official delegation of Headmasters, Headmistress, and Ministry workers politely, forcing himself to keep the tide at bay. He could see in their gazes that most of them had their suspicions about why they were there, and he wished for a moment that he had the time to discover and explore each one in depth before revealing the real reason. Alas, he didn't; there would be no time for building sandcastles to destroy while both of his daughters were lost somewhere in the currents of danger, going further out to sea every minute he wasted with idle play. "Have any of you seen our daughter Gabrielle? She told us she was going to spend the night with Fleur, but Fleur said she never arrived."

Olympe Maxime glanced at her fellow judges before replying, and Michel knew that it was going to come down to image once again. The witch was so focused on not appearing sympathetic to the plight of oppressed half-breeds that she overcompensated and regularly neglected the non-academic needs of such pupils. The only reason Fleur and Gabrielle still attended Beauxbatons was that it really was the best in the country in every other sense, and none of them wanted to affirm her prejudices by pulling them out. "She's a thirteen-year-old girl who regularly garners interest from her male classmates and has recently been introduced to a new country where the boys have a range of interesting and exotic accents," Olympe said primly. "I hardly think this is the time to worry about her running off to spend time with one of them."

And the first bolt of lightning flashed. " _Excuse me?_ " Apolline asked, her voice fighting hard not to show any of her emotion but failing miserably at it. "You're telling me that you don't care if one of your underage students is off in an unknown location with some foreign boy of unknown age."

"It's only a matter of time, in any case."

"This is because she's part-Veela, isn't it?" Apolline continued, her voice now dangerously low. This was uncomfortable territory; Veela were widely accepted in France, but this was not the case in the United Kingdom. This would have been an excellent conversation to have in front of French diplomats and emissaries who were determined to stomp out such discrimination, but it was much more volatile a situation here.

Olympe merely met her eyes squarely, saying nothing. Whatever sway Apolline Delacour might have in France, she didn't have it here, and Olympe Maxime knew that the majority of those around her would support her belief that a part-Veela who drives a boy to mindless lust should reap what she has sown rather than be allowed to be the only one unaffected by the situation. They were only half-human at best, and shouldn't be allowed to mess with human minds and then have their right to do it protected.

"It's a simple thing to admit or deny," Michel interjected, but she still didn't respond, and he knew that he had her. Most of his acquaintances would interpret her silence as an admission of guilt, which was all he needed. Regardless of how the conversation ended, he would annihilate her for this.

"Miss Delacour is not fooling around with some boy," Albus Dumbledore reassured them, before turning his piercing gaze to the witch on his right. "Olympe, I hardly think the privacy clause applies anymore, or that it ever applied in the case of parents. The Grangers, Weasleys and Changs have all been apprised of the situation, after all."

"Very well. The 'treasures' that the champions are to recover are in fact those people who we have determined are the closest to them. We tried to use the champions' dates to the Yule Ball where possible but, as Fleur confided in me that forms of magical coercion were implemented in the course of her evening, we determined that it would be more appropriate for her hostage to be her sister. We discussed the issue with Gabrielle last night, and she happily consented to the role."

"You _knew_ ," Michel said. "When we talked this morning, you said Gabrielle had spent the night with Fleur; you _knew_ she hadn't."

And that was when the thunder came cracking down. Albus Dumbledore reassured them of Gabrielle's safety, but did nothing to stop the yelling. After all, he hadn't known that Gabrielle's Veela heritage had in fact already started to manifest.

And Veelas' fiery heritage didn't mix well with water or those who inhabited it.

There wasn't much that any of them could do anymore. The magic of the Triwizard Tournament prevented them from interfering with the task now that it had commenced, so Gabrielle was stuck down there until Fleur or the merpeople pulled her out. So, after one final assurance that Olympe Maxime _would_ regret her decision, Apolline returned to anxiously waiting with Amelia while Michel went to discuss his intense displeasure with the situation to the Head of the Beauxbatons Board of Governors. They knew that Gabrielle would more than likely be fine. Water wasn't directly fatal to Veelas, it just weakened them and restricted their powers in a way that made them easier targets for potential opponents. The most likely outcome would be that Gabrielle would emerge from the lake feeling weak and sick but would quickly recuperate from it.

Regardless, Michel Delacour knew that Olympe Maxime would never teach in France again. He wasn't going to just annihilate her politically; he was going to rip each piece apart and display all of its imperfections in front of the court before stitching her back together again so that she would know forever that her flaws were written on her for all around to read. The bigoted half-giant had finally crossed the line she had been toeing for years, presumably lulled into a false sense of security by the fact that her toe had never been pushed back into place, and he was going to ensure she would never do it again.

The only question, which would be determined by how healthy and stable his daughters were when they returned to him, was how many people would be going down with her.


	3. Part 1: Fleur Delacour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to my lovely brother for beta reading this.

It was all so stupid. She'd fought Grindylows countless times before – they were _easy_ ; she'd been able to fight them off since she was _twelve_ – but the water had gotten to her. It had been a challenge to muster up enough power to drive even them away, and she'd known in that instant that she wouldn't be able to get down to whatever it was that awaited her at the bottom of the lake. Something would trip her up eventually. She wasn't afraid of failure – she practically lived for pushing herself to the point of almost-failure and seeing what came out of it – so the idea of swimming up empty-handed after trying her best didn't bother her all that much. What she _was_ afraid of was getting halfway down and being killed by something that she would have defeated with her eyes closed on dry land. She wasn't willing to risk everything for a mere title, especially when the odds were so skewed against her.

Besides, she knew how these tournaments worked. Equal weighting wasn't given to each task; the last one was the only one that really mattered. So they weren't competing for the title yet, just for how the handicaps would play out in the final task. She wouldn't even be risking her life for a title; she'd be risking it for an advantage when she _did_ go after the title.

So she turned back. It still felt strange doing it; she had always been the type to throw her all into each little thing she did, and this didn't feel like she was giving it her best shot. Instead of pushing the wall until it couldn't move any further, she was essentially identifying from a distance that there was a point at which it would just collapse over her, crushing her under bricks and mortar, and deciding not to bother trying to find another way. And that felt disturbingly like giving up. However, she knew it was the right thing to do. No mindless game was worth her life, whatever amount of glory winning might bestow upon her.

The water around her lightened as she propelled herself through it. Although everything in her wanted to get to the surface to see her sister, she swam slowly but steadily. A Muggle diving book she had read in preparation for the task – there were few wizarding books dedicated to diving, with most writers assuming that people would just scour Charms textbooks for useful spells anyway – had described a phenomenon called decompression sickness and methods to protect yourself from it. Fleur had memorised its recommendations and ran them through her head as she ascended. The illness, once she'd deciphered the Muggle technical jargon, did not sound pleasant, and she didn't want to have to spend the next few weeks having it treated.

Interestingly, she wasn't sure whether or not she was particularly susceptible to it. Magical blood usually protected against such diseases, but there was a good chance her Veela ancestry would weaken her defences against it. There was a chance that she could be more vulnerable to it than most Muggles due to that fact alone.

As the outside world grew nearer, she wondered if the spectators would assume somebody had already found their treasure. It wouldn't occur to them that somebody might simply turn back around again. Rather contrarily, and in an effort to keep her spirits up, she anticipated their reaction. Bagman would probably be gleeful at the impressiveness of such a speedy return, only to falter over how to announce it when he realised she was alone.

 _Another reason that it's obvious Harry Potter wants to participate,_ she thought. _If he really wanted out of it, he'd just jump in and immediately climb back out._

She hoped her parents had already found Gabrielle. Thoughts of her sister had been banished to the back of her mind for the duration of the task, but she let them seep back into her conscious thoughts now that she didn't have to focus on survival anymore. Her sister would be disappointed for her. Gabrielle had been hoping Fleur would win the tournament and show their snotty classmates – the ones who, despite supposedly supporting the anti-discrimination policy ratified by the Ministère français, acted as though the sisters went around stealing and corrupting boys as it took their fancy – that she was stronger than they could have ever imagined. She wouldn't be disappointed _in_ her, though, and that was the important thing.

Admittedly, it was tempting to swim back down and drift underwater for a while so that her schoolmates would think that she had fought harder and gotten further than she really had. The reactions to her resurfacing would be brutal, and put their past unfounded censures to shame. The idea didn't last long, however; she was used to their judgement and scorn, and wasn't going to let it delay her reunion with her sister.

Her head broke the surface, little droplets of water running down the bubble that encompassed her head in an attempt to return to their home, and she started to make her way towards the dock. An announcement was made, but the bubble and the sound of the spectators yapping away drowned it out.

Although her parents looked relieved as they ran to her, they couldn't disguise their stress. And Gabrielle still wasn't with them. Fleur didn't know how long she'd been underwater for, but she'd expected Gabrielle to have arrived before she returned.

Their hands gripped her arms and helped pull her out of the water and cast a spell that slowly started to dry her. "Are you alright?" Michel asked, speaking in quiet, rapid French so that nobody around them would understand his words. The judges would be told the truth, of course, but those around him didn't have to be. Excuses could be devised and given later; this was the time for the truth.

"I'm fine. I came across some Grindylows and struggled to fight them off. I knew that something would trip me up eventually, and that I wouldn't be able to get back out. It wasn't worth dying over. But where is Gabrielle? Is she still missing? Why are you not looking for her?"

"We know where she is," Apolline said, her voice careful as she draped a blanket around Fleur's shivering shoulders. "However, she can't be here at the moment."

Almost subconsciously, Fleur tightened the blanket around her, seeking its warmth and protection. Her stomach felt sick and her chest tight; so much of her magic had been used to fight the Grindylows that she had been even more susceptible to the effects of water than normal. "Why not? Where _is_ she?"

Neither of them wanted to tell her. It was obvious in their silence, in the way the stress and concern chased the relief off their face like a cat darting after a mouse, in their shared glance. As the time passed, her mother's gaze flickered towards the water anxiously for the briefest moment before she forced it back to Fleur again.

That moment, however brief, had been enough. The serrated pieces locked together in Fleur's brain, instantly revealing the grotesque picture her ignorance had been protecting her from all morning. Now that it fit, it seemed so obvious, as if there'd never really been any other feasible explanation for Gabrielle's absence; the young girl often lost track of time when she was immersed in her world of dreams, but she _knew_ that she did, and she would never have allowed herself to get lost in one of her daydreams so close to the start of the task.

And that's when her heart broke. She should have known; she should have realised. Her sister had _gone missing_ , and she'd been so busy concentrating on the task that she had failed to link it all together. Failure mightn't scare Fleur normally, but this one was inexcusable. The only thing keeping her from throwing herself back in despite the rules that leaving the water meant forfeiting the task were the two sets of arms that had wrapped around her and the knowledge that she would still be unable to reach her sister anyway. Going back down would be for nought.

 _But,_ she thought desperately as she struggled against her parents, _it's better than leaving her there._

"They say she will be safe," Michel whispered in her ear. "There will be a change of administration next year in any case. But they promise that she will be safe."

"I'm back up. Why can't they bring her back up too? There's no point to keeping her down there…"

"They won't want to confuse the other champions by having a merperson swim past with a hostage," Apolline said bitterly. "For all their words on safety, they don't want to jeopardise the task. But she _will_ be safe."

"Maxime authorised this, didn't she?" She felt her mother nod into her shoulder, and Fleur's hand twitched towards the pocket holding her wand. "Please keep me away from her. I don't want to give her ammunition by cursing her, and I will… If I see her, I will."

Fortunately for all involved, perhaps, it was Albus Dumbledore who approached them to obtain her recount of events, and who discussed the matter with the merperson who had been keeping an eye over her progress and the obstacles she came up against along the way. After all, she was steadily feeling her strength return to her, and she knew that the soon-to-be-demoted Headmistress would not care to feel the results of that strength.


	4. Part 1: Harry Potter

As he propelled himself deeper into the murky depths of the lake, Harry wondered how much time had elapsed since the task had started. It wasn't information that would have been particularly helpful in completing the task, but he still wished that he had a way of getting his bearings on how much time he had left. An hour wasn't very much time when you considered how large the Black Lake truly was, and that small slice of time also needed to include carting something potentially heavy _back up_. With the pang of frustration that often comes with realisations reached a little too late, he realised that, had he worked out the clue earlier and been more prepared, he could have asked Hermione to make his watch waterproof so he'd be able to keep track of the time as it trickled by. The grim realisation that it would have also given him an indication of when the gillyweed would wear off also struck him; as it was, he would have no idea of how much time he had left until it ran out. He wasn't even sure how long its effects took to fade. Would it be instantaneous or gradual? Would it start or finish when it hit the hour? Desperation had led him to taking the slimy plant Dobby had procured, but he really didn't know enough about it to put his life in its hands.

 _Perhaps I should listen to Hermione the next time she says I'm procrastinating,_ he thought. _It'd sure make life easier._ Alas, he knew that this stirring of motivation would fade as surely as it had all the other times he'd considered the idea. The problem was that he always wanted the monotonous slog of work to be done sometime that wasn't in the moment he was currently inhabiting. If he'd only just gotten it, he'd do it later; if there was no later to speak of, he'd wish he'd done it earlier; he had never wanted, and probably _would_ never want, to do the work in the present moment. Not unless it actively worked towards keeping Voldemort away or keeping his friends alive.

His thoughts were swiftly redirected when an aquatic _thing_ darted passed him, its slimy tail brushing against his arm and making his hair stand on end. He spun around, flailing madly to turn himself, but couldn't make out anything other than its silhouetted shape as it swiftly made its way through the murky water.

 _Please don't let it be a shark, please don't let it be a shark. Are there sharks down here?_ He knew that there were freshwater and saltwater sharks, and that at least one of those types only lived in areas with running water, but he wasn't sure if either of them could exist in contained environments. Worse still, he didn't know if the wizarding world had some kind of freaky shark equivalent with teeth on its fin or propellers on its tail or something. Rumours spread like wildfire across the Hogwarts student body, so he'd heard of a whole range of different, often unsettling, aquatic creatures that apparently made the lake their home, but it was impossible to keep track of which stories had been proven true, which were initially made up as a joke by the twins, and which were the result of genuine misinformation. His hand almost reached for his wand, but he knew it would be pointless. If only the tournament had been a few years later, after he'd had the chance to learn nonverbal magic; he had no doubt that some other life-threatening thing would have come his way this year in the tournament's stead, but at least he might have been able to use magic against it.

_Why would anyone think I was foolish enough to put my own name in? This is ludicrous. I don't know why seventeen-year-olds would willingly put themselves into pointless danger like this, let alone somebody who needs neither the fame nor the fortune that comes with winning. All I want is for us not to die._

He swam down, ignoring the fact that his limbs, unused to the repetitive motions of swimming, had started to ache like a dull ever-present reminder, and picked up two rocks from the bottom of the lake. They were small and fairly light, and he knew that the water would make throwing them with any degree of force difficult, but they were sharp and he felt safer just knowing he had some form of functioning weaponry. If it were a shark and tried to get him, maybe he could hit it in its eye or stuff a rock down its throat to blind, irritate or dissuade it. He didn't know what he'd do after that point, but at least the half-hearted plan gave him the stirrings of a sense of security, however false and tenuous it might be.

Figuring that he didn't have the time to wait around in case it came back for him, he pressed on, keeping a look out for any other potential foes while also taking note of nearby sources of cover. Coral; rocky outcrops; anything that he might blend into or hide behind was filed away as a potential hiding place. Fortunately, he didn't come across the creature, or anything like it, again, and he soon found himself approaching a raised platform, seaweed swaying around it in a kind of eerie, ethereal dance, surrounded by a platoon of merpeople with threatening looks on their faces. They were as different from the mermaid in the prefects' bathroom as History of Magic was from Quidditch, looking sallow and mischievous rather than innocently and self-absorbedly beautiful.

As he observed the pier, he hoped that he had been wrong about it being his Firebolt; if it were something smaller, something the size of a Snitch perhaps, he might be able to fit it into his pocket rather than being encumbered by it on his way back up. Swimming while holding such a chunky object would be trying. Although, he supposed the wooden handle could double as a weapon if he could bear to hit or prod something with it; it would, at least, be more threatening than a rock.

Drawing close to the structure, however, he realised that, atop the pier, there were four poles with shapes that looked like limp people tied to them. He exhaled in horror. Harry had assumed that the things the champions would most miss were their most prized possessions or some symbol of their favourite hobby, but of course they weren't; of course they were people. The idea of losing his Firebolt was repugnant to him, but the prospect of losing any of his friends was utterly debilitating. He would give up all of his possessions, although he'd be loath to part with his cloak, map or broom, if it would ensure their safety; of course he would miss his friends more than his Firebolt. After all, love was, as Dumbledore had stressed to him on numerous occasions, the most important thing in the world.

Of course, this also meant trouble. Now, he _had_ to succeed.

* * *

"They're my _best friends_!" Harry mouthed again, trying to get it through to the merpeople that he didn't plan on leaving either of them behind. He didn't want to leave _any_ of them behind, really, but he knew it would be hard enough to get two people to the surface with his limited swimming ability, let alone four. Besides, there was a good chance the other champions would also reach the pier. As soon as they'd surfaced and Ron and Hermione were safely ashore, he could come back for whoever was left, even if it would be pushing it for him to get back to the surface a second time inside the hour.

The merpeople remained unaffected by his arguments. If anything, amusement passed their features at the sight of the bubbles streaming out of his mouth. Harry was tempted to throw one of the rocks at them, but that would only provoke them, and he was going to have a hard enough time getting everyone out of this alive as it was.

He had to rethink things. What would Ron and Hermione say if they were able to see and talk? Ron would say to take one person up and then go back down with them to get more. And Hermione… She'd say to look at it from a different angle. The clue said that the hostages would be lost forever if they weren't reclaimed within the hour… However, he knew, logically, that there was no way Dumbledore would risk his students' lives on their champion's ability to reach them! There were too many things that could go wrong. Besides, they were trying to avoid deaths in this Triwizard Tournament, not risk the lives of four people whose names had never even gone into the Goblet of Fire. His gaze drifted over to the little girl, and he realised something else: he had seen the Delacours on the docks before the start of the task; there was no way any parent would have agreed to putting their preteen daughter in that position if they knew there was even the slightest chance of her actually dying.

So, although it went against every survival instinct Hogwarts had imparted in him so far, he just had to pick the person he would most sorely miss and return to the surface with them, trusting that the others would be safe. He would talk to Dumbledore once he'd resurfaced to ensure that the others' safety was in fact guaranteed, but there wasn't anything else that he could do about it.

But whose champion was he? The girl was obviously Fleur's to retrieve, and Cho had to be Cedric's, however much he wished she weren't, and he supposed that meant that Hermione was Krum's and Ron was his.

However, even as he thought that, he realised that Ron wasn't necessarily the person whom he'd most sorely miss. Prior to this year, he certainly would have been; Ron was his first and closest friend, and he would, being brutally honest, miss his daily company more than he would Hermione's. Hermione was always focused on schoolwork, whereas he and Ron were able to just relax and muck around together. Now, however, after Ron had abandoned Harry when he needed him the most due to idle envy of something he should have known Harry would never want, when he had left him floundering because he wouldn't listen... Harry had been shunned and celebrated by turn; everyone either thought he was an attention-seeking brat who had taken the glory away from its rightful place with Cedric and deserved shunning, or saw him as a cheeky innovator who had found his way around oppressive restrictions and was therefore worthy of praise. No one holding either stance wanted to hear the truth – that he was innocent, scared, and in need of support. He was used to people turning against him; they had in his second year, after all, under much the same circumstances. However, he had assumed that Ron and Hermione would always stand by his side, staving off the judgmental glares or envious comments and helping him work out how to face a dragon without being burned to cinders. Hermione had stood by him, but Ron had let groundless envy and resentment tear them apart. And, in the process, something had fractured. Of course, Ron _had_ come back after he'd had the time to stew over it, and things were now back as they had been, as they should have _always_ been. And Harry had forgiven him. But, still, the break and lingering bitterness were still there, however miniscule it was in comparison to the relief Harry had felt at their reunion. The bone poked away at the surrounding skin and caused the muscle of their relationship to ache a little every time it moved the wrong way. Because Harry now knew exactly who would stick by him throughout anything, and exactly who might not.

But did that matter? It was clear that he was expected to retrieve Ron, and for good reason. Returning to the surface with someone else – whether it was the girl he fancied or the girl who stood by him – would just polarise everybody even further. Those who despised his involvement would see him as even more of a trouble-maker, while those who celebrated his actions would see him as even more of a sassy rebel. Reactions would be intensified and comments harshened. He might be used to that by now, but that didn't mean that he could handle it at the intensity it would reach if he brought back Cho Chang and so was seen as further undermining the Hufflepuff champion. Besides, that would be a poor repayment to Cedric for his much-needed advice, however vague and initially insulting, on how to open the egg.

All too aware that the person whom he would view as the most helpless, the person whom he would most sorely miss, the person whom he most wanted to view him as a hero, and the person whom he was expected to retrieve in no way matched up, he darted forward to hack away at the ropes circling the two pale wrists, now cold and wrinkled from the water. The merpeople started forward in protest at his sudden movement, but he held up one finger to indicate that he had accepted that he was only to take the one. After a moment of suspicion and indecision, the man he assumed to be their leader gave a signal, and they all dropped back in unison. His path clear, Harry finished severing the rope and, after releasing the rocks and letting them drift to the lake floor, hoisted the body into his arms before setting off again, pulling the limp form, weighed down by waterlogged robes, up with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a bit of a change from canon here in that Dobby didn't overhear Moody and McGonagall mention that Ron had been taken and so couldn't report it to Harry when he gave him the gillyweed.
> 
> As of this chapter, everything that I've posted on FF has also been uploaded here. As such, I'm going to be reverting to a weekly update schedule for this story.
> 
> Thanks, as always, to my lovely brother for beta reading this. You're awesome and, without you, I would probably stress about this to the point of imploding; and then you'd have to clean up the mess so, really, it's better for both of us this way.
> 
> I'd love to hear your thoughts on whom you think Harry's taking back up with him. The answer will be revealed in the next chapter, and then from there it'll be looking at how his decision affects everyone else.


	5. Part 1: Igor Karkaroff

Igor looked away from the other judges to give the lake another quick scan. The surface sparkled with all the bothersomeness of a precocious, starry-eyed little do-gooder and was, even worse, utterly calm. About forty-five minutes had passed since the champions had gone under, so he wasn't yet truly expecting to see anything, but it had already become something of a habit. Dumbledore's composed presence and knowing gaze was still unsettling after all these years, Bagman had an aggressively careless and completely irritating way about him, and Maxime was still flustered after her confrontation with the Delacours about the Beauxbatons champion's hostage, so none of his fellow judges made for good company. Ergo, surveying the still water was, as woefully unproductive as it was, better than struggling to maintain a conversation with any of them.

Besides, he was certain that Krum would be returning soon. The boy had worked out the clue fairly quickly – with some help, of course; not that anyone knew that except for the two them – and had come up with a simple but extremely effective way of tackling the task. The partial shark Transfiguration would remain until the boy chose to lift it, therefore not confining him to any strict time limit, and would provide a good defence against aquatic predators. Add to that Durmstrang's focus on offensive magic and duelling and the fact that Krum was accustomed to cold climates and icy waters, and Karkaroff had no doubts that the Durmstrang champion would be the first to return with his hostage. Orientating himself while underwater might be difficult for the introverted Seeker, who had never had much of a head for geography or directions, but the other champions would be in a similarly unprepared position in that regard. In his mind, the only question was when Krum would resurface, and Igor was determined to be the first to see Krum and his little mudblood dalliance emerge victoriously from the lake. Not even the sight of that worthless kid the media had been slamming lately would sully the jubilance at the win.

The media attention entertained him. Initially, the mention of the girl's cleverness and the allegations that she had brewed a love potion to ensnare Krum had sent him, hopeful, running for the antidote. The realisation that their little fling was, indeed, the result of Krum's bad judgment had been sobering. Time, however, had reframed the situation in his mind. The famous Seeker would hardly be able to maintain contact with the girl once he'd returned to Bulgaria and his travelling lifestyle, after all. Besides, Igor was well aware that many of his students found their French and British counterparts fascinating and attractive in their exoticness, and that was likely the reason for Krum's attraction. Now, he took amusement from the constant articles; while that Rita Skeeter wrote that the chit was playing both Viktor Krum and Harry Potter, he was certain that it was instead Krum who was playing the girl.

It was also amusing to see how readily the British media turned on their own, like opportunistic vultures spying a wounded fellow. He had met the girl briefly at the ball; she might indeed be smart enough to make a love potion, if Krum's assessment was to be believed, but did not seem to have the ability to actively flatter or flirt. Furthermore, he would have been appalled had that happened to one of his students, even if she did have that skill. It was just another thing to chalk up to being one of the many ways Hogwarts and wizarding Britain were inferior to Durmstrang and wizarding Bulgaria. Their curriculum, their inept teaching staff, their casual corridors, and now their inability to protect their student from their media…

He heard Bagman say something about apples to Dumbledore, but didn't bother honing in on the words; it would be as inane as ever, and he didn't see the point in wasting his time for the sole purpose of humouring the man. The older wizard laughed merrily in response, causing a shiver to run down Igor's spine. That voice still haunted his dreams sometimes, reminding him of all of the times that his stupid little Order of the Phoenix pet project had shown up at a raid. The sight of Dumbledore in the lead, his long white hair and wafting robes making a stately figure that cut through the lights and noises of battle as surely as if he had been bellowing at them, had never failed to cast fear through the Death Eater ranks.

A wet brown blob broke the surface and tendrils of hair spread outwards like a ripple, floating in the water for a second before a head followed it up. He was so lost in thoughts and memories that it took him a moment to register what was going on in front of him. As soon as the instant passed, he cast a quick charm to amplify his vision. Its potency wasn't as strong as usual – he was still shaky and distracted from the flashbacks, and was unable to focus on putting his full strength into the spell – but he was able to see enough. Drenched, messy hair framed the pale face and, while he couldn't make out any more details from so far away, he didn't need to; the wild brown hair was unmistakeable, even when weighed down by water.

It was the Hogwarts girl Krum had taken to the ball, the girl they'd collectively selected to be his hostage. He had been the one to put her name forward, of course; they had all suggested one or two names for their student before deciding together on the best combinations. There had been one minor overlap, but it had been quickly resolved.

"I believe we have our winner," he said proudly, drawing the other judges' attention to the bobbing head. He negated the charm with a flick of his wand; while it helped to magnify vision at all distances, the level of detail and the way every little imperfection or movement caught the user's eye quickly became annoying when focusing on things at short distances. Another head emerged near the first, but he didn't bother paying any more attention to it. He was already on his way down to the edge of the lake with two blankets, one as an excuse to see Krum and the other because the Seeker would just give his to the girl, leaving him in danger of catching a cold and having his future performance compromised, if there weren't one for both of them.

"It appears as if our first champion has returned!" Bagman announced, his voice magnified so it boomed across the grounds and reached everyone's ears. No wonder the man loved commentating; the idea of a captive, whether by interest or lack of alternatives, audience must appeal to him and his oversized ego. Karkaroff wondered whether the remaining two contestants could hear him too, and rather wished they could; knowing that someone had returned might break their focus and demoralise them, especially if they hadn't yet reached the hostages. "And... oh. Oh, this is _very_ interesting. Yes, the first champion back is... _Mr Harry Potter_!"

Karkaroff faltered mid-step, and his foot came crashing down unsteadily. _What?_ That wasn't right. Bagman must have misidentified the boy, silly swot that he was. Maybe that bludger had damaged more than just his nose after all. To be fair, which he was, admittedly, rarely wont to do, he supposed that Krum and Potter's heads might look similar from such a distance; the trick was, of course, in the girl's hair.

He inched his way through the rapidly swarming crowd until he saw the girl being pulled up onto the docks, wet curls plastered all over her face, by three children with red hair. One of them, a girl, swung a blanket around her shoulders as soon as she was clear of the ladder, while the lookalike boys turned back to help out the person following her. Clinically, he noted that the redhead girl was casting what appeared to be drying and warming charms. His gaze drifted over to the boy being assisted up the wooden rungs now, and, even as his organs powered on like normal, it felt as if his whole body stopped working.

It wasn't Viktor Krum. This boy was much leaner, much shorter.

The twins started fussing over him, enclosing him in a matching red-and-gold blanket, clapping him on the back, and chattering away cheerfully. It was only when he turned to answer something the curly-haired girl said that Karkaroff got a good look at his face, and was no longer able to deny the obvious.

Bagman was right. Harry Potter had retrieved – no, _stolen_ ; it had undeniably been theft – the wrong hostage.

Letting the blankets drop, he spun on his heel and strode back up the path towards the judges. Embarrassment threatened to overcome him – they all had to know what he'd thought, what he'd assumed – but he stamped down on it. It wasn't his fault; it was that meddling boy's. _Everything_ was that boy's fault, from the Dark Lord's untimely downfall to this. While he hadn't particularly cared about his previous master's survival or wellbeing in and of itself, it had taken years of hard work to rebuild his reputation after the war's abrupt end. None of the Muggle-lovers had trusted him, and nobody from his side who still walked free wanted to be associated with someone who had only escaped punishment because he had sold others out. Even if they had forgiven him, any such association would have bought them their own personal bit of public scrutiny, which was something that none of them could afford at the time. And all of it, every struggle, had been because of that half-blood brat.

He was soon standing in front of Dumbledore, glaring down at him. "Your champion," he said, his face turned into a sneer for a moment at the title, "the one you twisted the rules to let complete, has sabotaged mine. I demand he be disqualified."

Bagman started spluttering, but, realising his voice was still magnified when the crowd quieted and looked to him in concern, paused to reverse the spell. In his silence, Dumbledore decided to respond. "I hardly think this warrants disqualification, Igor. Mr Potter obviously reached the pier and was confused about whom he was meant to save. I believe I already voiced my concerns about both the ethical and practical issues of using humans as hostages. Relationships are difficult to quantify and compare, and it's impossible for anyone to definitively determine the person that one – especially one as young as Mr Potter – would miss the most. Furthermore, I recall putting both Mr Weasley's and Miss Granger's names into consideration to serve as Mr Potter's hostage, and that we made the decision on the basis of the fact that you wanted Miss Granger to be Mr Krum's hostage. As it was indeed Miss Granger he chose, rather than Mr Weasley, perhaps the fault was with us for choosing the wrong champion for the hostage rather than with him for choosing the right hostage for him."

"I agree!" Bagman exclaimed, his voice at its normal volume once again.

Seeing that Maxime was about to contribute and, in all likelihood, correctly assuming that her opinion would be more in line with Karkaroff's – if Harry were disqualified, Fleur would be placed third rather than fourth – Dumbledore said, "Why don't we wait until the remaining champions have returned and we have discussed the matter with the hostages' guardians? It is impossible to develop an accurate understanding of what occurred down there or what its implications for the others may be until we have that information. And I, for one, would rather enjoy this lovely day. It's so rare for me to be able to sit down outside and do nothing like this. Busyness has the delightful ability to keep one's mind active, but, alas, it does not leave much time for quiet contemplation."

Desperately wanting retribution but having no way of arguing his point without obviously and overtly overstepping the mark of fairness, Igor sunk into his chair. Hopefully Krum would return soon, followed by Diggory, and the merpeople would confirm that Potter's obvious interference had cost them both time. With Delacour and Potter having both done so poorly on this task, Krum would have a much greater chance of winning the next challenge and taking home the title.

And it might help him save face after his rather obvious and very public blunder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to my lovely brother for making the time to beta read this. Also, thank you to everyone who has left kudos for or bookmarked this story.


	6. Part 1: Cedric Diggory

Something that looked strangely akin to a river surrounded by trees stretched out beneath him. It didn't make sense; how could there be a river within a lake, or, for that matter, trees within a lake? His curiosity caught unawares like a mischievous kitten spotted chasing its neighbour's pet bird, Cedric swam down through the water with long, powerful strokes of his arms. Finding the merpeople's den was really just a matter of trial and error, and something that looked like a river transposed underwater seemed like the sort of unusual formations that would be a good place to start looking.

Sure enough, he soon passed trees that were almost certainly alive and flourishing and reached what definitely appeared to be a river. The water within its bounds was a darker colour than water surrounding him and had its own separate current, moving much faster than the water around him. He knew he had to press on, but decided to allow himself a few minutes of delay. Who knew whether he would ever get a chance to return to this strange underwater phenomenon, or whether some basic knowledge of it might prove useful later on? Moving his wand in the familiar gesture, he levitated a stick towards the strange river, dipping it in before moving it out again to examine its effects. It was, to his intense interest, well and truly intact; he was more than used to viewing all unknown substances as potentially dangerous until proven otherwise, and the fact that nothing had happened to the stick made it that much more likely that it was, simply put, a _natural_ phenomenon. Letting the stick fall back into the water, he watched it float away downstream. On a whim, he decided to follow it; he really had no idea of where the merpeople could be, except that they lived at the bottommost part of the lake and that they liked living in defendable places. They were, after all, frequently exposed to sharks, the Giant Squid, and other dangerous creatures. If they knew about this river and knew, or thought, that it was in fact harmless, they might have made a settlement nearby.

He followed the river down a slight slope for approximately twenty minutes, constantly surveying the area around him for signs of predators, merpeople, or other interesting landmarks, until it petered out into a small lake with long wiry reeds poking out of its shallows. _A lake with plants inside a lake with trees,_ he noted. _I wonder if it has its own distinct ecosystem, too?_

Movement off to his right caught his eye, and he forced himself not to tighten his grip – while it would make him feel better, it would also make his wandwork less fluid and so less precise – as he watched it out of the corner of his eye, not wanting to draw its attention to the fact that he had noticed it. A shape sped back to cover, and he recognised it in passing as a merchild.

 _Finally,_ he thought, reorienting himself to face the structure it had disappeared into. The proof that he had reached them made him uneasy, but he would have to face them eventually; he might as well resolve himself to the task now.

In front of him stood a gigantic rock set into the lakebed that, upon closer scrutiny, could be seen to have a small entryway blocked off by a wooden door. Large spikes had been driven into the earth near the entrance, and three merpeople stood guard outside like silent watchmen.

"Not here," one of them said. "Not here…"

"How do I know you aren't lying to me as part of the challenge?" For all of his feigned bravado, the shakiness of his voice elucidated exactly how nervous he was. Merpeople weren't the kind of magical creatures that humans readily associated with, and he didn't want to anger this group when they had a home ground advantage. But if he left and later found out they had just been trying to deter the champions…

The other two merpeople expelled a quick, aggressive series of high-pitched sounds in an obvious threat.

"Our young are hidden here while you champions search," the first one finally told him, hesitating frequently as if to find the right words to convey her message. "This area is not part of your _event_."

"I'll go," Cedric promised. "But can you give me any direction as to where the hostages are first?"

"You're supposed to find them yourself…"

"The rules didn't specify that," Cedric reasoned. "Besides, I've already found some of you on my own."

Amusement lit up her eyes, and she pointed one gaunt hand in a random direction. "It's several hundred metres that way. Keep going straight until you find a dead tree, and then turn right. There will be a pier…"

"We shouldn't…" the second merperson interrupted. "Albus Dumbledore…"

"Ceorl," she replied, "he would not care… It is the Ministry with their many rules who would."

"Thank you; I wish you the best," Cedric said gratefully, before turning and swimming off in the direction she'd indicated.

The journey was long but, ultimately, uneventful. The tree was easy to find; its bare, cracking grey bark reflected the light emanating from his wand. As he swung around to his right, he spotted a merperson in the distance and headed off in its direction.

Cedric's nerves returned as he neared the site. The number of merpeople around him was steadily growing. While he had known he wouldn't be able to successfully take on three of them, he had fooled himself into a false sense of possible victory; this just showed him how utterly defenceless he would be if they decided to attack him. Still, he swam steadily through the group of merpeople, trying to ignore their unsettling presence. He knew that they wouldn't attack him, after all, however eerie they were; although merpeople were known for luring stray swimmers and sailors underwater and into a watery grave, Dumbledore had allowed this particular group to migrate to Hogwarts after their ocean home was targeted in a Ministry raid on the condition that they refrain from attacking anyone on school grounds. They, knowing that the punishment for infringement would be a swift death for those involved and banishment for any deemed complicit by association, complied. A few of the merchildren had been known to come above water and flirt with students from a distance, but the sole time one of them had tried to pull the student below had been immediately stopped by the merchild's parents.

Despite knowing that it was safe, and that the Bubblehead Charm could protect him from their drowning tactics indefinitely, swimming towards a group of such creatures went against all of his instincts. He had been taught from a young age that you swim away from merpeople, not towards them, and yet here he was, rapidly approaching them as if they were long lost friends he couldn't wait to embrace.

Admittedly, he'd known when he put his name in that goblet that being chosen would mean facing a string of increasingly difficult life-threatening encounters, so he didn't exactly have any grounds for complaint. The merpeople were, objectively, much less threatening than the dragon, and were no doubt less dangerous than whatever he would face in the third task.

He spotted a raised platform ahead and a little to his left, and adjusted his path so that he was swimming towards it. Four poles rose up out of the bottom of the lake, three of them with a limp person tied to it. The idea of human hostages surprised him, but the shock didn't last long. While he certainly hadn't expected it in a modern Triwizard Tournament, the idea did have precedent in its historic iterations. It was practically a requirement for fantasy adventure books and plays, after all; someone the hero cares for is endangered, and he alone can save them. In the previous tournaments, the endangered individual was usually the champion's betrothed or intended. Now, he supposed they'd gone for the closest approximation they could find.

Ron Weasley; a young blonde girl; Cho Chang. There was no doubt in his mind who had been brought down for him to find, and he swam directly toward his girlfriend while contemplating what the scene told him about the other champions' progress.

Weasley and the girl were obviously here for Potter and Fleur respectively – he'd always disbelieved the rumours that Potter and Weasley were together, thinking them to be merely the result of the legion of envious or vengeful dissenters that they had both somehow seemed to accumulate over the years, but apparently he was wrong – so that meant Krum had already been there. Cedric had been sure he'd seen the Bulgarian Seeker heading off in the wrong direction somewhere behind him at one stage, but he supposed he'd caught up and overtaken the Hufflepuff while he was fighting off the death eels or, more likely, negotiating with the merpeople hiding near the strange river. It didn't really bother him; if Krum _had_ gotten ahead sometime, fair play to him. Besides, placing second would be an admirable feat, and there was still a chance he could overtake the burly young man on the way back up. It really was all a matter of who came across what when, so nothing was truly definite until the last person exited the lake.

Pulling Cho's cold hands as far apart as the rope would allow so as to create more room for error, he carefully cast the Severing Charm. The hidden benefit of the Bubblehead Charm was, in his opinion, that it didn't restrict speech, so he still had his full arsenal of spells at his disposal. He hadn't stuck around at the start long enough to pay attention to what the others had done, but he'd caught the scent of gillyweed just before jumping in. Cedric hadn't considered that particular plant himself; the Bubblehead Charm had come to mind almost immediately, and there had been no need to look for alternatives after that. It was, he supposed, a good tactic when you considered the incidental benefit of creating webbing between your toes and fingers, but it didn't do anything about the speech issue. As a relatively strong swimmer, he'd rather retain his speech than gain a swimming advantage, so he couldn't say he regretted his decision not to explore that option.

Its tension broken, the rope started to pull away from Cho's hands, leaving them unencumbered. He untangled her hands before sinking down to cut the rope binding her feet. The polyester floated languidly where it had been released. With her thus freed, he swam around the pole and wrapped her arms around his waist, casting charms to reduce her weight and secure her to him so he could decrease the impact on his swimming speed and mobility. Thus prepared, he kicked off the rock floor, heading straight up. The way he saw it, it didn't really matter whether or not they emerged near the entry point; it might be a slightly longer journey this way, but it would help him get his bearings, and would hopefully decrease the number of obstacles he would encounter.

Sure enough, the path upwards was fairly clear. He did come across some sea creatures lured by curiosity at whether the strange bubble was a threat or good to eat or just some previously encountered bit of floating debris, but they were unused to magic and so easy to scare off. Guilt darkened his mood. It wasn't their fault he was disturbing their usual activities, or that they felt impelled to investigate it; it was, however, his fault that they might now see humans as predators to be feared.

The sight of the lightening water above and around him diverted his thoughts, and he propelled himself forward with increased intensity, feeling reinvigorated at the sight of the home stretch. Finally, his head broke the water, and he waited for the water to stream down the side of the bubble before taking stock of his location. He wasn't as far away from the jetty as he'd thought, although he was now in a completely different spot than he'd started. It seemed he'd gone around in a loop underwater to get to the pier. As he started to dip back underwater, setting out for the entrance, he heard a cry from the shoreline. He let the memory of his fellow housemates' proud faces and supportive words spur him on those last ten metres, before removing the charm that fastened Cho to his back and pulling her, spluttering, from the water.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to everyone who has left kudos for, commented on or bookmarked this story, and to my lovely brother for beta reading it.
> 
> Sorry that this chapter is late; our phone lines are down again, so I had to wait until I got to uni to upload it. To anyone who's still without power or running water or has been isolated by the NSW storm, or has been affected by the earthquake in Nepal, my thoughts and prayers are with you. Everyone, please stay safe; getting around a few days earlier or getting somewhere half an hour sooner isn't worth the risk.


	7. Part 1: Cho Chang

Her head bobbed up above the water for a moment, bringing consciousness rushing back in like the surging tide. It felt like she had suddenly awakened from a deep, peaceful slumber. But, if she had been asleep, why was she wet? Her groggy mind tried to process it but, before she could, she was suddenly submerged in the cold water once again. Shocked, Cho's eyes bolted open, before instinctively squeezing shut again to block out the sting of the water. Instead, she tried to take stock of her surroundings with her other senses; water sloshed and splashed around her and she was pressed against something solid, with her arms wrapped around and legs resting against it. As something kicked beneath her, she realised it had legs too.

It was a person. Why had she been sleeping underwater with another person?

Right; that was it. She'd agreed to be a hostage; she remembered that now. That meant that the solid, legged thing she'd been cataloguing had to be Cedric. She tried to move her hands to hit his chest – they were still underwater, and she hadn't had the chance to take much of a breath before their plunge back in, so she was rapidly running out of air – but they wouldn't budge. He must have used magic to secure her to him. While she appreciated the cleverness and difficulty of the spell – it really wasn't designed for human targets, and using it thusly required much more effort and concentration – it didn't exactly make this easy for her. She started to kick her legs, hoping to draw his attention to the fact that she was alert or to at least speed up their progress, but at that moment she felt her hands being loosened and her body being lifted up above the water. Thrashing her limbs around to help propel herself upwards, she strained her head for the surface, relieved when it broke through the water into the fresh air beyond. She spat out the water in her mouth and, flailing a little to keep her head up, started gasping in the welcome air.

Cedric's arm wrapped around her waist to steady her, and he directed her towards a metal rung that she reflexively gripped, revelling in the ability to focus on inhaling air rather than staying afloat. All she could think about was how wonderful breathing felt. "Cho, the ladder's in front of you," he said softly. "Marietta and I will help you out."

She wiped the water from her eyes before focusing her attention on the ladder and the hand reaching down in front of it. Taking it in a tight monkey grip, she let them help her out, Marietta pulling and Cedric pushing while she stumbled up the rungs. Somebody wrapped a blanket around her as Marietta and Cedric's friend Bobby helped pull him out, and, teeth chattering with the incessance of a bobble-head doll, she gripped it to her body tightly in her quest for warmth.

Only when Cedric was out did she notice the excited chattering of the crowd around her as they celebrated their return. A few of the people closest to them thumped Cedric on the back in congratulations as he passed them on his way to her, and she watched him smile and nod and politely thank them in return.

When he was out of their reach, she walked towards him, stepping easily into his embrace. She wanted to say something, feeling that it would be appropriate, but wasn't sure what to say. Should she thank him for coming down to get her, or tell him that he'd almost drowned her in the process? Should she congratulate him for succeeding, or ask how he'd gone? Should she express how she felt about him when she was still working it out for herself? If he'd truly saved her from something, it would have been easy; she would have expressed her complete and enduring gratitude. The protocol was a little hazier when it came to someone putting their life in danger to rescue you from something that really wasn't endangering you in the first place, however. The problem, in her opinion, was that it really was the kind of moment where a declaration of love would be the most appropriate thing to say, recognising what he'd done without exaggerating the deed, but they weren't quite there yet. Close, perhaps, but not yet. "You've still got a bubble around your head," she ended up saying, and he finally removed the charm, resulting in the last dredges of water that had been resting on it coming down on him like a light flash shower. She giggled at the sight and, instead of worrying about what to say, pulled him closer to her, tucking her head into his shoulder and smiling into the damp towel as he did the same to her. In that moment, physical presence and comfort was enough.

After a moment, she moved her head back so she could see him properly. "Hello."

"Hello."

"I have to admit I don't really know what to say."

He grinned broadly, and she felt herself grow warm inside despite the water droplets still clinging to and running down her skin. "Me neither."

Rolling her eyes at them both, she leaned in to kiss him. The warm pressure of his mouth felt like a thawing heat against her lips, which were still clammy from the lake. Her hands reached up to grip his hair, dry and fluffy but streaked with random patches of water, the motion dislodging the blanket from her shoulders. She ignored its absence at first, not wanting to cut short the feeling on his tongue against hers, but soon grew too cold to continue. Smiling, she pulled back and picked up the fallen blanket, swinging it around herself again.

"You taste salty," Cedric murmured, running his hand through her waterlogged hair.

"You taste perfect," she replied, just as quietly, reaching out to take that hand in hers and hold it against her cheek. She felt like she was floating, and she wasn't sure whether it was an aftereffect of the potion, the almost-drowning, or the kiss. All she knew was that, while she mightn't love him yet, what she felt was a pretty close approximation of the feeling.

"Alright," Marietta's voice cut through her haze, bringing her crashing back down. "Sorry to interrupt, but Bagman's coming over to fetch you, and if you're still snogging when he gets here he'll probably announce it to everyone right after confirming that it is indeed the two of you. So unless you want everyone to know…"

The couple separated, neither of them wanting the cooing play-by-play over their 'canoodling' that they were certain Bagman would provide. Their hands found each another, however, and hung clasped between them.

"Where's Krum?" Cedric asked.

"Huh?"

"Krum. I know we have to go through the whole publicity rigmarole, but I figure he's probably found somewhere private to wait for the others to come back up. He's good at finding hiding places when you give him half a chance. Might be a good idea for us to tag along if he doesn't mind."

"Krum and Hermione have come back up?" Cho asked, glad for the extra clue as to how Cedric had gone.

"I assume so; Granger wasn't at the pier when I reached it, and I didn't overtake him on the way up, so…"

"He isn't, actually," Marietta replied, comprehension dawning as to what Cedric had meant. "There was a big to-do about it earlier; Granger's come back up, but not with Krum; it was Potter who brought her back."

"But..."

"I know," Bobby chimed in. "The judges haven't decided what to do about it yet. They haven't _said_ anything, mind you, but the Weasley twins..."

"Of course," Cedric said, his eyes drawn to Bagman as the man approached them, a joyful spring in his step as he struggled to make his way through the crowd, Madam Pomfrey trailing close behind him. The man was using his magnified voice to try to shepherd people out of the way, but most of them seemed to either be too occupied trying to reach Cedric or too interested in chatting to the ex-Beater to care. "They seem to be able to overhear anything."

"Has anyone else come back up?" Cho asked, seeing it as her opening.

"Fleur pulled out early on; got spooked after fighting some Grindylows, apparently. Krum's not back yet."

"How long was I under?"

"Just under an hour, I think."

"Congratulations," she told Cedric, squeezing his hand. "It sounds like you did really well."

"It wasn't really all that hard," he demurred, self-conscious at the praise. "It was just a lot of swimming, really."

Hufflepuffs were used to playing as a team and celebrating as a team, with an all-for-one and one-for-all mindset that didn't leave much room for personal excellence or commendations. It was so unlike Cho's own house, wherein most people stuck together in small groups of two or three friends, that she always found it endearing in its sense of group togetherness. Her housemates tended to be jealous of their time, not wanting to offer it to other people unless their other obligations were already completed, while Cedric's friends seemed to give it to others as if they had an infinite amount of it. While Cho would quickly get frustrated by the constant disruptions that would come with that kind of lifestyle, part of her longed for his gift to effortlessly befriend and maintain friendships with a large group of people.

"You're just being modest," Bobby said, clapping him on the back once more. "We're all proud of you, man."

"I'm glad they had someone keeping an eye out on you," Cho admitted, nodding towards the Headmaster as he conversed with a merperson who had surfaced shortly after they had.

Cedric flashed her a grateful smile at the change of topic. "I don't think it was just for the champions' sake. I came across some merpeople guarding their children on my way to find you; it was probably also to make sure we didn't harm any of their young or their settlement."

"You saw merchildren?" The sight was a rare one; merpeople usually kept their children out of negotiations with humans, so the few people who caught a glimpse of the youngsters were usually being lured into a trap. "What was it like down there?" The lake had always been a source of half-hearted curiosity for her; she wanted to know about the secrets that lay hidden in its depths, yet she feared that the answers would put her off ever wanting to swim there again. Regardless of her dilemma, it seemed a shame to have gone down there without getting a sense of what it was really like.

"I caught a glimpse of one as it went back into hiding," he said. "And the lake was what you'd expect it to be; beautiful, but eerie and filled with dangerous creatures. They all tended to stay at the very bottom of the lake, which would be why we've never seen any of them. There was also some sort of underwater river; following it was rather surreal as it felt like you were aboveground even though you knew you weren't. It kind of felt like I was suspended in mid-air above it, flying without any sort of assistance."

"Mr Diggory! Miss Chang!" Ludo Bagman's loud voice cut through their conversation, causing them to wince. "Congratulations on both making it out safe. We're here – "

"I'm here to check you both over to make sure you're not injured," Madam Pomfrey explained, cutting him off. "He's here so he can then report your conditions back to the judging committee."

"I'm fine," Cedric said. "Cho, are you – ?"

"I'm a bit cold, but nothing unexpected."

"Then I'll examine Mr Diggory first," the matron responded. "He's more likely to have sustained unknown injuries. Unfortunately, there was no medical tent provided for this task, so we'll just have to find some clear space nearby. Mr Bagman, could you perhaps – ?"

The man cheerfully directed a nearby group of students to relocate; when the space was large enough for the matron's satisfaction, she conjured a reclining chair for Cedric to lay on and, as she prepared herself, called back, "I'll be back to see you in a jiffy, Miss Chang."

"Thank you," she responded.

"She seems to think that us having additional reasons to want to know about your health takes away from how interested we are in making sure that you're both alright," Bagman said wryly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to everyone who has bookmarked, left kudos for or commented on this story, and to my lovely brother for beta reading this. Also, I swear I don't actually hate Bagman...


	8. Part 1: Viktor Krum

His shark head and its keen senses helped him to detect sea creatures and take swift measures to avoid them, reducing the number of obstacles he had to face. Still, it did nothing to improve his mediocre swimming ability. He was used to the cold and had been taking frequent trips down into the lake's depths over the past few weeks to practice swimming and to accustom himself to the shark's sharper arsenal of senses. However, while cramming so many practices into such a short period of time had certainly developed his technique and stamina, he was still nowhere near as strong a swimmer as he would have liked to have been. It was therefore a great relief when he first caught sight of the merpeople. They weren't creatures he particularly wanted to cross, especially in their home environment, but he was used to interacting with temperamental team mascots and so had become partially desensitised to such danger. Besides, he had been trained by the best Dark Arts and duelling professors available, and had a healthy serving of confidence in his own magical abilities. His specific shark senses, such as the ability to detect the direction of sounds and water vibrations, not to mention his teeth, would also give him an advantage. The fact that he had only undergone a partial Transfiguration meant that he had a much shorter lateral line than normal sharks, so his senses weren't as refined as they could have been. Regardless, they would still aid him should it come down to a fight. While he had no chance of overcoming the colony by himself, he would be able to hold them back for a while if needed, hopefully buying himself enough time to get a somewhat decent head start. Although he didn't envision needing to. No; one of the most useful things the Bulgarian Seeker had learned from his career was not to piss off dangerous magical creatures.

He'd seen a competitor lose his hand, and almost his career, to a leprechaun during a particularly heated post-game argument. The brawl had started when Rosenberg accused one of the Irish Chasers of using banned spells and treatments to bolster his broom's performance and give him an unfair edge over his competition. After the referee's diagnostic spell had come back negative for such actions and play recommenced, Rosenberg started targeting the Chaser in question, causing a vicious argument to break out between the two players. Neither the teams nor their mascots had taken the insults lightly, and a fight of ramming and yelling had ensued on the field as a group of leprechauns snuck through the bedlam to enact their own revenge. The leprechauns in question had been banned from any future involvement in the Quidditch World Cup, but the damage had well and truly been done. Fortunately for Israel, Rosenberg had been determined to return to the team once he had healed, and had worked tirelessly to retain his position of being the best Beater in the world. Regardless of his perseverance, however, it had taught the other players to never truly annoy another team's cheer squad.

Viktor nodded at one respectfully as he passed her. Her face contorted into the merpeople's version of a polite social smile, which, ironically, looked more like a hair-raising snarl to most humans. The only time merpeople looked attractive to humans was when they ventured above water to lure someone under; in that moment, they more than made up for their erstwhile hostility, possessing an ethereal beauty that almost always drove all thoughts of their deadly nature from their prey's mind. That was rather the problem, really; humans were terrified of them when they were just being nice, but then blinded by their allure when they were being everything but. As neither race were particularly interested in spending more time getting to know the other, the problem had persisted over the years and was likely to continue doing so.

Respect thus conveyed, he focused on the pier he was steadily approaching. Four posts rose up from it, two of which held figures bound as if ready for a sacrificial offering or public execution. The scene seemed to resemble a sort of underwater witch trial, with the condemned individuals fastened in place while the village people jostled for the best view of the upcoming carnage. For a brief moment, he wondered whether that was the intention, and what the merpeople thought of the fact that they were being portrayed as the villains of the piece. But none of it, however imposing or eerie it might be, surprised him. Karkaroff had, after all, warned him of the miniature of the task, just like he was certain Maxime and Dumbledore had done for their students. He'd known what he was to face and whom he was to retrieve and had merely been left to work out how to best overcome the obstacles in order to retrieve her.

It had been a relief to hear that she was going to be his hostage, given how unreceptive everybody had been to their relationship. When he'd first told them he was going to the ball with her, his friends had been incredulous; they'd understood the allure of foreign girls, but they hadn't understood how that particular girl had caught his fancy. They had insisted that she was too young, too inexperienced, and far too plain. One classmate had even claimed that it was just a phase. He'd insisted that it made sense that Viktor wanted a break from fangirls throwing themselves at the persona they'd built up for him, but that he'd soon grow tired of it and of her. Their protests had died away after they'd seen them together at the Yule Ball, after they'd realised how intelligent and gorgeous she was and how happy her company made him. They had been replaced, however, with Karkaroff's obvious disapproval and the Slytherins' objections about her blood status. Not even her best friends had accepted it, if what she'd said and he'd observed gave any indication of their feelings on the matter. Then that Skeeter woman had just magnified matters by displaying and sensationalising their relationship for her readership's entertainment. All in all, he thought it was a good thing that the organising committee had agreed to select Hermione as his hostage. It might have been his optimism shining through, but he rather hoped it would help to sway the public's opinion, even if it had no hope of eliminating their intrusive nosiness.

With that hope firmly in mind, his gaze flicked between the figures, looking for the familiar head of bushy brown hair that had fascinated him ever since the first time he saw it.

It found only red and blonde.

Examining them again, this time forcing himself to slow down, he focused on their faces. One was freckled and distinctly masculine, the red hair surrounding it like trailing blood. He looked somewhat familiar, although Viktor wasn't sure why. But that was an uncomfortably normal sensation for him, given how regularly he was approached by fans who he might or might not have once had a playdate with, so he quickly discarded the thought. Surrounded by a hanging coil of pure gold, the other face was young and angelic. The resemblance to her sister was obvious and frankly rather uncanny, as if she were merely a shrunken version of the Beauxbatons champion. However, her allure had not yet turned sexual, instead invoking protective instincts that he hadn't ever had reason to exercise and that were only heightened by its juxtaposition against their dangerous surrounds.

Neither of them was someone he knew personally, and neither of them was Hermione Granger.

It was possible that Hermione had simply refused to participate. It didn't seem like her; while she had refused to retell her adventures in any sort of detail in case he deduced some kind of underlying strategy that would give him an advantage over Harry, her propensity for bravery had shone through in what little she had shared, and he had heard plenty of stories about their yearly escapades from other students. Still, he supposed that it was conceivable. When telling him about the task and, grudgingly, that he was angling for Hermione Granger to be his hostage, Karkaroff had mentioned that they hadn't yet approached any of the potential hostages. The rationale had been to prevent the kids from leaking the information to their champions; it was more about the appearance of competitive integrity than the genuine encouragement of it, but it had been deemed important nonetheless. However, he would have then expected to have seen her before the task started and to have found one of his teammates or school friends in her place. Neither of the remaining hostages was someone Karkaroff would have chosen as a last-minute placement.

His sharp eyes, trained to detect small objects normally and now further enhanced by the partial Transfiguration, spotted a tuft of curly brown hair floating in the water nearby, one end tenuously attached to one of the vacated posts. It was around about where that hostage's head would have rested, as if it had gotten tangled in the wood and then been ripped out of the scalp when the unconscious form had been pulled away. He swam forward, raising his hand until the clump of hair floated within its grasp.

It looked familiar and, besides, it didn't belong to Cedric's date for the ball; it had to be Hermione's.

He glanced at the watchful merpeople and noticed that their smile-snarls seemed more pronounced, more intense, than before. They were amused at this, those sods. Hermione had been down here after all, and somebody else had taken her to the surface, and they were enjoying his confusion, waiting for the fallout. In hindsight, he wondered whether the first merperson had been smiling at him out of politeness or out of thinly-veiled anticipation. Were they hoping he'd throw a tantrum for their amusement?

If they were, they were going to be disappointed. There was no way he was going to pander to their little game. And, even as he finally recognised the red-haired boy as Hermione Granger's other best friend, he knew that there was no question as to whom he was taking back up with him.

He was well aware that his sullenness and resentment at being placed in such a bothersome position were influencing his decision, but he hardly cared. Although he knew that Fleur Delacour would never have left her sister behind for someone else and so that he should, technically, take the boy, he wasn't in the mood to make his decision on the basis of preserving the integrity of the task. It might mess up the system even further, but he didn't see the point of protecting the unstable remnants of an equilibrium that had already been sent careening wildly off balance. Someone had messed up before him, and his job wasn't to find a way to fix or minimise their mistake. His only role was to determine whom out of the two before him he'd most miss were they to die or disappear, and then to get that person out of there.

On a metaphorical level, Viktor Krum would miss little girls more than he would miss teenage boys. It wasn't entirely fair, given that he and his schoolmates were all teenage boys themselves, and he certainly wouldn't want teenage boys to disappear either, but there was no point denying it. He didn't have many friends who would be culled by the decision, given how his closest friends tended to be similarly career-oriented and so usually older than him, whereas he found young children adorable and endlessly amusing and full of symbolism about noble things like the promising future of wizardkind. Besides, he – extremely secretly, for the fangirls would have descended upon him with even greater force of will if they ever caught word of it – dreamed of fathering and raising daughters one day, and the young Delacour girl reminded him of that secret wish.

On a practical level, it was even simpler; in his opinion, as a matter of honour, you never leave little girls behind to die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to everyone who has left kudos for, bookmarked or commented on this, and to my lovely brother for beta reading this. Also, Happy Mother's Day to all of the mothers and grandmothers and godmothers and mother figures out there! You're all awesome :).


	9. Part 1: Gabrielle Delacour

Dawn had been breaking as they'd made their tired way down to the lake. The organising committee had insisted that they get down there as early as possible so as to ensure that nobody saw them leaving the castle, but they hadn't wagered for children's propensity for morning inertia. They had all been groggy throughout the short trek across the grounds, and Gabrielle had still been yawning intermittently when they'd reached their destination. Yet, despite her tiredness, she had still felt excited at the prospect of – as Bagman had so indelicately put it – helping her sister.

That had swiftly changed; she'd realised she'd made the wrong decision as soon as they reached the water's edge and Maxime held out the vial to her, its liquid contents a stark, sickly white with pale grey streaks that just radiated an aura of putridity. It had reminded her of the most disgusting kinds of medicine, except without the health benefits. When she had taken the potion, she'd caught scent of a disgusting odour that made her want to tip it out or vomit or even do both. She knew that one should never judge something by its appearance; in her opinion, however, it was always prudent to judge things by their smell. Bad food might look appetising, and good food might look horrid, but rotten food tended to smell like rotten food. A small contingent of merpeople had floated in the water nearby, ready to take the students-in-stasis to the holding point.

As she'd stared at the proffered vial, well aware that Maxime and at least one of the merpeople were staring at her, exactly what she'd agreed to had finally hit her like a well-timed jump scare. It hadn't seemed like a big deal when they had first told her about it; while swimming didn't sit well with Veelas, part-Veelas suffered no lasting ill effects from brief jaunts in the water, and Gabrielle and Fleur had both learned how to swim in case they ever needed it. Furthermore, she had known she'd be unconscious the whole time, and so wouldn't even feel any temporary nausea or faint-headedness. If Fleur could stay down there long enough to fight her way down to get her, she could certainly stay down there long enough to be gotten. She had been so determined to help her sister, however, that she hadn't bothered to register exactly how long she was supposed to stay underwater for.

An hour was hardly a brief jaunt.

Still, even as the nerves had rushed in like the water lapping at the grass not ten feet away from her, she hadn't known how to say no, not after she'd already agreed. Reneging just hadn't seemed acceptable at such a late stage in the game, not when they were all gathered there like friends readying themselves for an early morning adventure, not when the other hostages were downing their potions with disgusted expressions on their faces, and certainly not when the judges were all watching her expectedly as they waited for her to do the same. Gabrielle had wished there were a way to just slip away unnoticed, but no such option had presented itself to her. Her choices had been to drink the potion or to admit to these highly esteemed personalities, these people she wanted to like and respect her back, that she was too cowardly to finish what she'd started and that they'd have to hurriedly find a replacement for her before sending the rest of the group down with the merguards.

So she too had drunk the potion. The foul taste had almost overwhelmed her, and she had wondered whether the idea was to knock them out by that alone. It had certainly seemed, in that moment, as if it could have done the job. Sadly, it hadn't, and she'd had to wait as the bulk of the taste died away like foliage in autumn, leaving her mouth clear except for the few solitary leaves that persevered into winter. The others had gradually drifted off around her. Then, without her knowing, her consciousness had slipped away slowly, leaving her like the proverbial frog who didn't know the water was heating up until it was too late to get out.

The awakening wasn't anywhere near as gradual. It came upon her like a flash of lightning striking in the dead of night; one moment she was floating in darkness, feeling the chilly water against her skin but unable to interact with it with any of her other senses, and the next her world was lit up and she was gasping in air. Her mind was so focused on the welcome sensation that it didn't spare a thought for keeping her body afloat. Fortunately for her, somebody else was doing that for her; one arm sat securely around her waist, holding her head up above the water. A loud voice announced something, but her mind couldn't make out the words; it sounded like an awful lot of noise for an awful lack of meaning. She was vaguely aware that they were still moving and that the arm around her didn't feel like her sister's – it felt too bulky, too firm – but she didn't really care. All she cared about was the sweet taste of the fresh air and the fact that they should soon be leaving the lake behind. One thing she was sure of was that nothing would be able to induce her to go back in there again; everything felt uncomfortable and just _off_ , like every part of her body felt queasy.

"You're okay?" The distinctly male voice was heavily accented, but it wasn't British like those she'd been surrounded with lately. She instantly realised that he had to be Viktor Krum, the only non-British champion apart from her sister. "Can you swim? I'll be here, but we'd be faster."

"I'm fine. And yes." He let her go, and she shakily started to swim alongside him. After a few strokes, however, she realised that her limbs were too weak and her stomach too woozy for her to be able to sustain the motions. "I don't think I can," she soon admitted, gratefully gripping his arm as he returned her to his hold. "Do you know where my sister is?"

"I don't – look, there she is; she's waiting on the docks."

Gabrielle looked in the direction his finger was pointing. Sure enough, her parents and sister were all gathered at the edge of the wooden dock, watching her with a strange amalgam of relief and concern. "I'm sorry I can't swim," she said. "I can usually, but after being underwater for so long…"

"You shouldn't have been taken down there."

Although his barbed statement, dripping with disdain and disapproval for whoever had agreed to or arranged her involvement, wasn't directed at her, she still felt its sharp sting. Well, she would just have to get used to it; Gabrielle was sure she was going to get a lot of that from her family over the next few days. She should never have been so stupid as to agree to it; Fleur had had neither warning nor choice, but she'd had both and had still gone through with it. "I agreed to it."

Krum glanced at her, his gaze brief but assessing, before focusing on awkwardly swimming once more. He looked somewhat like a graceless toad trying to swim with one arm. She felt a flash of guilt rush through her; if it had been someone else, someone who could swim independently, rather than her, he wouldn't have to be working to keep two people afloat right now. "You are how old? Eleven?"

"Twelve, actually." Even though she knew it was probably better to feign younger so that he blamed her less, she couldn't help the indignation behind her reply. There was a whole _world_ of difference between eleven-year-olds and twelve-year-olds, after all.

"They shouldn't have asked; you're too young to say yes. They should have asked one of your sister's friends to do it instead."

"Thank you." Her reply was quiet, so much so that he barely heard it above the rush of water near his ears and the chatter of the crowd as they neared the docks. "For saying that, and also for saving me."

"It wasn't heroic," he replied, scoffing at the idea of it. He was too used to having people fawn over him and jump at the chance to make his deeds out to be better than they actually were. They built up pretty pictures of him in their minds and then expected him to smile and pose and act them out as if he were a model rather than an athlete. The idea of this girl thinking he'd gone out on a limb to save her, joining the ranks of people who saw him only as a famous sports personality, was repugnant to him. She could have her childish dreams and fancies, but he didn't want to be a part of them, especially not for this. "Someone else already brought Herm-own-ninny out. I chose you, but it wasn't a sacrifice. And you would have been safe either way."

"Oh. I knew I wasn't going to die. I just meant… Well, I just meant that I'm grateful you helped me. And are still helping me."

A nod was her only acknowledgement, and the rest of the swim was passed in silence. When they reached the ladder, he helped her out, and she was immediately pulled into her family's waiting arms. Fleur whispered a string of apologies in her ear; apologies for not knowing, apologies for turning back, apologies for not being there for her. Gabrielle reassured her – Fleur had no way of knowing; she was glad that Fleur had turned back, because her sister might have died otherwise; she had done all she could have been expected to do under the circumstances – and answered their questions about how she was feeling, but her mind was still on Viktor Krum. No censure came her way, but, then again, she supposed that they would wait until the shock and relief had worn off for that. Curious about him, the boy who helped her but didn't want her gratitude, she extricated her head from the huddle and watched him as Karkaroff and some of his friends surrounded him. As he turned to leave, Fleur pulled herself from her sister and went over to thank him profusely, kissing him on each cheek and chatting rapidly. If Gabrielle hadn't been watching Krum so intently, she might not have noticed that the look on his face soured ever so slightly at Fleur's attentions.

 _Strange,_ Gabrielle thought as she too stepped away from her parents, fascinated by it. _Not many people can resist her allure – or liking me, either, as a matter of fact._

"I'll be back," she murmured to them.

"Now we know they're safe, I'm going to talk to the Education Minister," she heard her father tell her mother in rapid French as she walked away. "I want her dismissal finalised by nightfall. They won't put it in effect until the end of the school year, but it'll be better if I push for it now rather than waiting for the urgency to die down. I'll be back for the announcements."

"Fleur," Gabrielle said when she reached them. She considered speaking in French for the sake of privacy and ease, but quickly decided against it; it would be discourteous to exclude the Bulgarians from the conversation, and, deep down, part of her _wanted_ Krum to know what she was saying, to know that she understood. "Come for a walk with me? I think Krum would rather, euh, debrief with his own friends at the moment."

Fleur took the unsubtle hint and, after one last heartfelt thank you, bid him goodbye. Looping her arm through her younger sister's still-cold one, she started chatting happily with her. "The school matron is wanting to see everyone anyway. She'll be looking for you in particular as you are so young."

As Gabrielle followed her sister away, she glanced back at Viktor Krum, and she caught the hint of a grateful smile on his face before he went off in search of Hermione.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to everyone who has left kudos for, bookmarked or commented on this, and to my lovely brother for beta reading this.


	10. Part 1: Rita Skeeter

Rita Skeeter was overflowing with barely concealed excitement. This was quite the scandal indeed! Better yet, it was a _two-tiered_ scandal, which meant she might even be able to draw it out over two articles if she interviewed enough people. She was already a household name, but this would make her a journalistic _hero_. There had already been cause for gossip in the initial line up of champions and hostages, but this little complication just made it all the juicier. As she made her way towards Viktor Krum, who had been left alone when Granger had returned to wait for the youngest Weasley boy with Potter, she started mentally cataloguing everyone she needed to interview. It wouldn't do to miss a vital stakeholder.

Most of the original pairings had been rather mundane. The decisions had obviously been informed by who had accompanied whom to the Yule Ball, so there wasn't really anywhere new to go with the Diggory-Chang and Krum-Granger pairings other than to say that the relationships were still apparently going strong or that, to put a nastier spin on it, Granger still had Krum under her thumb. The other two, however, were much more interesting. Apparently there was a _reason_ the organisers hadn't picked Davis and Patil as the other hostages, and she was determined to find out what that reason was. Press coverage of the ball had been denied and wards enacted and so, while she could have snuck in as a beetle, her options had been limited. Students and professors alike had been prohibited from talking to the press about anything that went on during the dance, so reporting on anything but the most major of things would have either brought censure down upon her sources or suspicion upon her. Ergo, she still didn't know what had happened that night other than that The Weird Sisters had performed live, who the champions' dates had been, and that Patil and Potter hadn't enjoyed themselves. This might give her a new, interesting angle on the issue; she was sure it wouldn't be too difficult to obtain statements from the individuals involved now that she officially was on the grounds and had a direction to take it in.

The real kicker, however, wasn't who Potter's intended hostage _wasn't_ ; it was who it _was_.

The youngest Weasley boy.

Oh, how she could spin that story. There were three possible narratives, really. The first was that she had been wrong about Hermione Granger, and that Harry Potter had been the one playing _her_ while he was really in a secret, sordid relationship with their other best friend. The second was that the entire Granger-Potter relationship had merely been a cover for a dalliance that they knew would have seen Weasley and Potter both ostracised had it been found out. Intrigue and homosexuality all rolled up in one neat little story; oh, how the public would eat it up. However, both of those options would, unfortunately, redeem Granger somewhat in the public's eye, and she wasn't yet ready to let up on the girl; Rita was determined that the girl would learn not to mess with her, and she didn't think she'd learned her lesson quite yet. The third, and the one she was personally leaning towards, was that Potter had been so traumatised by his brief but passionate love affair with Granger that he had turned away from girls altogether; taboo and ill-considered, perhaps, but all too understandable, or so she would write. It was, after all, the mistaken folly of a heartbroken boy who was not at all in his right state of mind and who would never have acted the way he did had his precious little ex-girlfriend not hurt him so. She was going to leave making the final decision until she'd found out whatever else she could scavenge up, but it was almost too delectable a treat to pass up.

Of course, the little switch-up was even more interesting. Something had made Potter choose the wrong hostage; perhaps he had been trying to maintain his cover, or perhaps Granger had managed to ensnare him once again in the time between the hostages being selected and Potter bringing her up with him. Yes, the latter sounded better. However much the duplicity of the alternatives appealed to her – who knew the three Gryffindor darlings could act so deliciously Slytherin – nobody wanted to read a smear campaign about their beloved hero. Granger, however, was fair game; however much their society feigned acceptance, almost everybody was almost _looking_ for another example of a mudblood girl behaving despicably and illustrating exactly why purebloods would always be intrinsically superior to them in manner, if not in ability. The fact that Granger was quickly becoming known as the smartest witch of her age only helped; if Rita could bring down the smartest Muggle-borns had to offer, what hope did the rest of them have?

Rita herself wasn't prejudiced, of course; she couldn't care less about the chit's blood status. All she cared about was bringing her back down to size, even if she did have to allow for that awful hair. Blood status only served to ensure that few people would question her assertions, and that those who did would be quickly shushed.

She was anticipating what Krum would have to say on the subject of Potter's mix-up; he couldn't like the fact that somebody else had saved his girlfriend before he could, especially when that somebody was her ex-boyfriend. A few scathing remarks from him about Granger's flightiness or Potter's misguidedness would do quite nicely. She might even be able to incite a challenge out of him; if those two ended up duelling and _she_ reported on it… It would mean that she would have to make comment on his decision too so as to create a sense of fairness and authenticity, of course, but it would be worth it for what it would do for her attack on Granger. As soon as she had one of his greatly coveted but woefully rare statements, she would track down Patil and Davis.

"Viktor Krum! Might I have a word? It will only take a few moments of your time. Given how much time witches and wizards waste per day, I'm sure it won't be a bother."

A friend of his approached as she spoke. She expected him to make a comment to Krum and go on his way, but he did neither as Krum hesitated before nodding once. He was silent, as always. That was no matter; her Quick Quotes Quill could fill in his silences with words so scandalous that it would hardly matter that he had said so little.

"Shall we go somewhere private? A quiet stroll along the bank, perhaps…"

"We stay here."

"It would be easier if we – "

The friend pulled out a wad of parchment and handed it to her. She didn't have to look at it to know what it was; she'd already had to sign a contract the last time she spoke to him, and she imagined it would be the same this time. Drat. She'd been hoping he'd forget in the excitement. His stipulations that she had to report what he said accurately and without embellishment had hindered her writing in the past. Sighing, she skimmed through it, ensuring that it was in fact the same contract, before adding her magical signature to the parchment and handing it to Krum for him to do the same.

"Now we talk," he said once the paper was back in his friend's pocket and her Quick Quotes Quill, instructed and bound to record their conversation accurately, was poised in the air beside them.

"Alright. Mr Krum, is it true that Miss Granger was supposed to be your hostage?"

"I believe so."

"And yet Mr Potter, who reached the hostages first, was the one to bring her back up. Do you know why that is?"

"I assume because they are friends."

"Oh, so you haven't spoken to him about it?"

He hesitated, before saying carefully, "We talked, but not about that."

"What did you talk about, then?"

His gaze was pointed as he said stiffly, "No comment."

"Alright then; something less personal. When you reached the hostages and found only Miss Delacour and Mr Weasley, what did you think? What did you _feel_?"

"I felt… confused. Neither of them made sense as my hostage. I wasn't sure if there was a – how do you say it? – mix-up or not."

He was being profoundly unhelpful. The problem about one of the champions being an international Quidditch star was that he was used to dealing with reporters and controlling the flow of information, and knew the art of answering only the literal meaning of unwanted questions. He also knew how to use the language barrier and his highly publicised introversion to his benefit; nobody expected him to be particularly verbose, especially with English-speaking reporters, and so he always settled for the minimum amount of information he could get away with giving. It didn't help that he saw her as having insulted his girlfriend and so had a particular grudge against her, or that he probably knew she was angling to do so again. But Rita knew his game, and knowing that there is a game being played is, after all, the first step to winning. It was just a matter of trial and error until she found the right tactic to break through his defences. "Let me paint you a picture, then. You reach the hostages. You didn't know that there would be people involved, but you work it out when you see them there. However, you have no idea who your hostage is supposed to be. You don't really know either of them. But you know you have to make a decision, so you choose Miss Delacour."

"Have you considered being abstract artist? They paint whatever they like. You make good abstract artist."

"What made you pick Miss Delacour?" she pressed, ignoring his interruption for the sake of her point.

He shrugged. "She is a little girl. Where I come from, you save little girls first."

Well, at least she could paint _him_ as a do-gooder. It would contrast more strongly with Granger's, and even Potter's, actions, even if it didn't directly give her new fodder to use against them; Granger had cheated on Potter with Krum, causing a distraught Potter to run into Weasley's comforting arms, before deciding that she once again wanted to ensnare Potter and uncaringly left the upstanding Krum behind. The idea that the young Gryffindor had not only won their idol's affection but also thrown it away like garbage would enrage his legion of fans, and would most likely turn any Bulgarian readers against her. Her readership was primarily British, but if she could take this to an international level…

The hubbub of another return rose up around her, and she peered over the rail to see a wet rag of Weasley-red hair bobbing above the surface. A female merguard emerged from the water next to him and they started making their way to the jetty.

If Krum wouldn't cooperate, maybe _he_ would. She'd heard of his temper and proclivity for envy from Malfoy and Parkinson; if she gave him time to discover what had happened on his own and then came in with empathetic ears at just the right moment, he might be mad enough to not only agree to the interview but to also forget to filter his words and thoughts. A carefully edited and embellished rant from him would _more_ than make up for Krum's quietness. Plan thus set, she went off in search of Patil and Davis in order to bide her time until there was an opening to approach Weasley.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to everyone who has left kudos for, bookmarked or commented on this, and to my lovely brother for beta reading this story even when he doesn't have much spare time to do it in. I had way too much fun writing this chapter.
> 
> I know that J.K. Rowling has said that the wizarding world is accepting of diverse sexualities. However, while I understand and respect her reasons for saying that, I don't think it fits in with the old-fashioned and patriarchal world she's created.
> 
> The story was originally going to end after chapter twelve, but discussion with Lord-Marauder-2013 has prompted the decision to continue after that point. I'm not yet sure whether that will involve an epilogue set in seventh year, more chapters based in fourth year, or a combination of the two. However, I won't be able to concentrate on that until after the uni semester ends, so there will be a bit of a break between the twelfth chapter and whatever ends up following it.


	11. Part 1: Ron Weasley

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has subscribed to (got the terminology right this time, I think), left kudos for or commented on this, and to my lovely brother for being a full-time employee by day yet a beta reader by whenever-schedules-align.
> 
> I won't be uploading the next chapter next weekend. I was going to warn you that it was unlikely that I'd get it done by then but promise to try my best, but I can't keep the possibility open like that. The next fortnight is going to be hectic, and having even the slightest commitment to getting it done by Sunday would probably mean that I'd finish it to the detriment of my studies.

Groggy consciousness rushed back in as his head breached the surface, feeling like a sudden wave of queasiness after eating a poorly cooked lunch. Clammy hands gripped his arms, holding him steady while he gasped in large amounts of air and struggled to get his bearings. Why was he in water? The last thing he knew, he'd been… at the – at the shore of the lake, taking the potion to simulate a sort of temporary sleep-death hybrid. His memories thus returned, he stopped flailing, and the hands started pulling him towards the docks.

"Blimey, mate, it's cold," Ron managed to say through chattering teeth as he started to paddle as well, wanting to escape the biting water as soon as possible. His underwater sojourn had felt as brief as Dumbledore had promised it would, but the chill had, despite the warming charms that had been cast so that none of them got hypothermia, spread throughout his body nevertheless. He wasn't sure how long he had been down there, but it had obviously been long enough for the cold to settle in. "Wasn't the best idea for a task, was it? Wonder whose stupid idea this one was. Percy's, probably; the prat." Nobody responded. "Harry, what – "

Turning to face his friend, he instead caught sight of a stranger swimming along beside him. At first, he thought it was just a side effect of whatever Harry had used to enable him to stay underwater for so long. He was swiftly disabused of that notion, however. The figure had pale grey skin and lustrous emerald green hair that, upon meeting the water, spread out like dye. Utterly enchanting sunflower-yellow eyes peered back at him, drawing him in like a lonely traveller looking for a place to stay for the night. It all blended together to create an image of haphazard yet beguiling beauty and charm. Most importantly, however, they weren't male, and they most decidedly weren't Harry.

"You're not Harry," he stated, feeling rather stupid but not knowing what else to say.

"No, I'm not." Her voice was melodic, and he yearned to hear more of it. Part of him knew that this had to be a mermaid, and that this was all part of her dangerous and often deadly allure, but he hardly cared for caution at a time like this. She was beautiful, and he was enthralled. "Only three champions reached the base."

 _That_ , while failing to break him free, left cracks in the fabric of her allure. His dazed mind still wasn't fully his again, but his gaze searched the anxious crowd for his best friend. Perhaps Harry hadn't worked out how to breathe underwater after all. It would be an embarrassing shame and would give the Slytherins even more ammunition to needle him with, but it would be better than the alternative. As long as Harry was still alive and somewhat whole, Ron didn't really care. Then again, he didn't really care about anything at the moment, to be honest; he could run away with this enticing mermaid and he'd have no regrets.

Except that wasn't quite true. There were a lot of people and things that he cared about, and a lot of people and things that he would miss. He'd miss Quidditch, and regret not knowing how the Cannons finished on the leader board that year. After supporting them in vain for so many years, he'd hate to miss their eventual – and, in his mind, inevitable – rise to success. He'd miss his family, even when Percy was being a prat or the twins were harassing him. Leaving the overcrowded Burrow and myriad siblings behind might be awfully tempting at times, but it'd never be a real or permanent option for him. He'd even miss Hermione, even though she'd blatantly betrayed him and Harry by going to the ball with Krum. Everybody who repented deserved a second chance, after all, and he was sure she'd realise her error eventually; besides, she really was a good friend when she wasn't letting herself get preoccupied by foreigners. And he'd certainly miss Harry, despite his frustrations at always being the ridiculed sidekick of the famous friend. It might get infuriating sometimes, but it really wasn't Harry's fault that everybody was so fascinated with him; all Harry had ever done was try to stay alive, really.

In fact, there wasn't any real benefit to running away at all, other than the alluring girl, and, now he thought about it, she wasn't actually all that pretty in the first place. She looked rather unusual, really, if you thought about her features individually. However mesmerising she might be, he doubted that anybody could honestly call her pretty. No; it would be much better not to run off with her.

Willing himself not to look back into those eyes to test whether he could withstand their subtle assault, he climbed up the ladder that was suddenly in front of him, only sparing an appreciative nod – his eyes focused elsewhere – to his erstwhile companion before focusing his attention on finding Harry and Hermione in the crowd. If Harry had been the only one not to reach the pier, then Krum had to have found and retrieved Hermione. For the first time since recognising her at the ball, he thought about the pair without being overcome with jealousy; if Krum had indeed rescued Hermione, Ron was grateful to him. He knew that it was irrational; all four hostages had been safe the whole time, so it wasn't as if he had really rescued her. Regardless, he appreciated the action.

He didn't have to search for long. Only a few mere seconds later, he saw Harry and Hermione fighting their way through the crowd, his family close behind them like an army charging to destroy its enemy or to recover a captured comrade. They surrounded him in a mass of hugs, blankets, and pats on the back, and he let himself be lost in them.

 _This,_ he thought as he was encased in warmth and love, _is much better than being lost in a mermaid's eyes._

-m-d-

It wasn't until the scores were announced that he fully comprehended what had happened. Things had been moving so fast that he just hadn't had the time to think, let alone to entice Harry or Hermione to discuss their experiences in any real depth. He had known they were both being uncharacteristically antsy and distant, but he'd attributed that to the crowd around them and anticipation over the upcoming results. It wasn't until Bagman mentioned the 'little mix up' that he understood exactly why neither of his friends seemed to be able to look him in the eye or talk to him for long.

At first, it felt like a sham. Surely it was a dream; surely it couldn't be real. As time wore on like water beating against the rocks of his comforting delusion, however, he came to realise that it was painfully genuine. That was his world now; he'd somehow gone from a world in which he was Harry's best friend to a world in which Hermione was Harry's favourite whatever without even realising it.

He felt hurt and utterly betrayed; it had been painstakingly obvious whom Harry was supposed to retrieve, yet he'd left Ron down there anyway. He'd done it _knowingly_ , not caring that everyone would know and take note. As soon as the announcement was made, every single person in the crowd turned to look at their huddle before breaking out in whispers. Ron could feel his face heat up as he flushed in mortification. Unable to concentrate on Bagman's words any longer, he fixed his gaze on the silhouette of the Whomping Willow just visible in the distance and tried to ignore everything that was going on around him. Even the announcements of the rankings failed to reclaim his attention; he wasn't willing to let it worsen his already filthy mood and didn't know which results he wanted in that moment anyway. Part of him wanted Harry to go well, but another part wanted him to be penalised for leaving him behind; while the self-righteous plea for vindication was certainly louder than the support for his friend, he didn't know which part was bigger.

And he'd thought _this_ would be better than basking in a mermaid's allure.

As soon as Bagman finished speaking, Ron made a half-hearted excuse about ducking down to the kitchens for an early lunch. "No," he said when Harry offered to come with him, "you should stay and celebrate. I'll meet up with you later."

Harry – the Boy Who Lived, the youngest Seeker in a century, the second Hogwarts champion, his supposed best friend, the boy who'd left him behind – glanced at Hermione before, eyebrows furrowed, opening his mouth in order to say what Ron presumed would be a plea for forgiveness. But Ron never got to find out what he was planning to say; Fred bounded over to them and, with a boisterous cheer, stole his attention before he could verbalise his thoughts. Torn between being thankful for the interruption and disappointed that Harry hadn't had the chance to convince him to stay, Ron made his way back to the castle alone.

That, unfortunately, meant making his way through the throng of people lingering at the water's edge in case anything else of note transpired. The task itself was quite easy; his height and hair both tended to stand out in a crowd, and the other audience members all appeared to be intrigued by his progress, so it was easy to get people to shuffle over. However, his movements were apparently deemed a thing of note; infuriating silences cropped up whenever he came into view, and he frequently overheard endless whispers and snide comments be exchanged in his wake.

 _Finally,_ he thought as he broke free of the crowd's stifling confines.

He was vaguely aware of being intercepted by Rita Skeeter, but, still feeling like he was in a haze, he swiftly brushed her off. However frustrated and in need of someone to rant to he might be, he knew better than to let her take that role. He had seen her drivel concerning Hermione already; he didn't want to give her the chance to write for the heartbroken tirade he knew she would turn even a throwaway comment from him into.

The sight of the castle doors was a welcome one, and he felt some of the weight lift off his shoulders as he entered the building. Most of the students were still mulling about outside, so the school was unnaturally empty and quiet. It was a nice reprieve from the activity and judgement of the outside world. Ron hastened to the kitchens, not wanting to be in the corridors when the peace eventually broke.

Alas, even the kitchens themselves felt like a return to reality. Dobby was eager to know how Harry had gone, leaving Ron with little choice but to awkwardly relive the events as he tried to tell the house-elf enough to satisfy him. Other house-elves tottered around making and fetching enough food to last him through both lunch and dinner, but Dobby – despite their insistence that he was dishonouring himself and, indeed, them all by not working – refused to go until he had heard everything. Ron rather suspected that the house-elf would have been content to listen to Ron's recount until Harry himself showed up to take over had Ron not eventually excused himself. All in all, he didn't stay in the kitchens for long.

Not wanting to be found near the dungeons, he hastened back to Gryffindor Tower.

To his relief, a glance out of a fourth floor window revealed that the majority of the crowd still lingered around the lake. He still passed enough people to be treated to the silences and whispers and barbed comments, but it was nowhere near as bad as it would have been had the castle been fully occupied again.

"I hardly expected you to be the first back. How did it go, then?" the Fat Lady asked when he finally reached her portrait.

"Glory," he muttered.

"Well, yes, that is the idea of it all, isn't it? But what about our Harry; how did – " Her portrait swung open before she could finish her question, and Ron slipped inside without another word.

Fortunately for him, none of the other Gryffindors were back yet, supposedly all still revelling in Harry's success. A part of him still felt abandoned, however, as he made his way through the empty, too-quiet common room and up the stairs to his dormitory. Once the door was closed behind him, blocking out the rest of the world, he flopped down on his bed and dug into his food.

Many hours later, he was staring listlessly at the ceiling, wallowing in his aloneness, when the first sound of activity drifted up to him. With the speed of the twins running from a prank gone wrong, he slipped underneath his covers, cast a spell to close his curtains, and closed his eyes. Sure enough, the door creaked open a little while later and he heard Harry quietly ask whether he could talk to him before, realising that no response was forthcoming, returning downstairs to what sounded like the start of a party.

Ron desperately wanted to be downstairs with them. He really was happy that Harry had succeeded, and he didn't want this to cause another rift between them; not when they'd only just rebuilt their friendship after their last spat. What was stopping him, however, was the fact that he simply didn't know how to celebrate such a thing. How do you revel in a friend's success when everyone knows it came, directly and unnecessarily, at your expense?

Instead, he let himself drift off into a state of half-sleep, half-sorrow as the cheering and music and laughter raged on.

-m-d-

The sound of approaching loud chatter and footsteps roused him from his slumber. Apparently, he had eventually fallen asleep through sheer exhaustion. A glance at his watch showed that it was almost two in the morning.

"Really great job, Harry," Dean, who sounded more than a little tipsy, was slurring out, loud enough that he could be easily heard through the closed door. Ron wondered how he'd gotten to the alcohol. Fred and George usually nicked some – from what they'd previously told him, they took the firewhiskey and left enough money to cover it in its place – when they went to get supplies, but the prefects were usually diligent about ensuring that none of the younger students drank any. Apparently his housemates had let the rules slide in his absence; how thoughtful of them. "If you keep smashing it like this, you'll be the victor for sure."

"I don't care about winning," Harry replied. Ron noted that he too was slurring; knowing Harry, he wouldn't have "I just want everyone to stop treating me like some sort of pariah."

"Ignore them," Neville replied. "They're either jealous that you took the limelight from Cedric or envious that you're a champion and they're not. It's just because you're doing so well."

"I just wish we could have seen _how_ well," Dean butted back in. "An underwater task, _honestly_."

The door creaked open, and their happy chatter ceased. A few more whispered words were exchanged, then he heard the creaking of floorboards and beds. It sounded as if one person hovered outside Ron's drawn curtains for a few moments before moving on, but that could have just been wishful thinking.

-m-d-

The next morning, he resolved to act normal. He would have already drawn enough attention to himself by not attending the party the night before; seeing as everyone was so obviously on Harry and Hermione's side, he didn't want to risk inciting their disdain or pity. Empathy would be fantastic; pity would just make him feel pathetic. His time of self-confinement ultimately worked in his favour, however; he woke up much earlier than he usually did, and, knowing that he'd be unable to get back to sleep, was able to slip down to the Great Hall for breakfast before any of them stirred.

Breakfast was spent alternating between brushing off attempts at consolation and ignoring snorts and remarks laced with derision. Every single person in the school knew what had happened, and they were already weaving their own tales, making the goings-on sound even more scandalous and noteworthy than they actually were. It was like in the aftermath of their third floor adventure in their first year; Ron hadn't been able to keep himself from telling Dean and Seamus about their heroics, and then stories had spread through the student body like Chinese whispers set aflame. Then, at least, it had been about something positive, something that all three friends were – while, in Harry and Hermione's case, embarrassed at the attention – fine with being known for.

The slander and infamy embroiled in this task made it a completely different experience.

Eventually, he gave in and, after swiping the Marauders' Map so that Harry wouldn't be able to track him down, found an abandoned classroom to waste time in. After barricading the door and setting up the map so that he could keep an eye on any dots wandering around nearby, he threw himself into his schoolwork with the kind of vigour he had never before even contemplated affording to it. There was no guarantee that things would be alright with Hermione in time to get her help on his essays, and the boredom was starting to overwhelm him.

It was almost lunchtime before either of the dots representing his friends strayed from the common room.

-m-d-

Throughout lunch, he forced himself not to look at them. Their constant glances and stares prickled at his skin like little pins trying to find a pincushion to rest in until he was certain that they'd spend more time looking at him than at their food. Instead of succumbing to the temptation of peeking over at them in return, he threw himself into a conversation with the twins and Lee. He was gnawing into a piece of chicken as he was regaled with the tale of his brothers' first prank at Hogwarts when he noticed Harry and Hermione pass the table near him. His eyes met Harry's imploring green ones, but Ron quickly diverted his gaze back to Fred's wildly gesturing hands as the older Gryffindor tried to encapsulate the magnitude of the story.

"And that," Fred finished with a flourish towards his friend, "also happens to be how we befriended Lee here."

"Detentions are an excellent way of making new friends," George advise him seriously.

"I'll keep that in mind."

"Did you read the _Daily Prophet_ this morning?" Lee asked casually.

Silence fell in their immediate vicinity. Ron glanced at Lee curiously, only to find that the older wizard was watching him. It took Ron a moment to realise that the question must have been directed at him. "Nah. I don't subscribe to it. It's usually utter rubbish, anyway."

"It might be a good idea if – "

" – if we head back to the common room to finish planning that new prank?" George asked, cutting in entirely too fast and looking entirely too inconspicuous not to be hiding something. Ron narrowed his eyes at his brother; something was amiss, and it somehow concerned him and, presumably, that day's edition of the _Daily Prophet_. Past experience with trying to get George to talk, however, had convinced Ron that nothing short of truth serum would be able to coax answers from him. Both of the twins had always been exceptionally good at keeping secrets.

"Excellent idea," Fred added. "We'd better get cracking if we want it to be ready for tomorrow."

"You coming, Ron?"

"Er, sure."

George's hand slipped into his pocket. Ron expected him to pull something out of it, but he merely let it linger there.

It wasn't until a classmate made a not-so-veiled sly comment and was rewarded with a quick Stinging Jinx that it clicked that that was the pocket where George kept his wand.

-m-d-

Ron spent most of his afternoon talking to Fred and George, but couldn't remain hidden inside his cocoon of denial forever. The older boys eventually went off to put their prank into action, leaving him alone in the corner of the common room, looking out over his housemates as they milled about in obvious contentment. Dean and Seamus were trying to write the Charms essay Ron had finished that morning, and Parvati and Lavender appeared to be giggling over some Divination predictions, so he was at a loss for what to do.

He was contemplating the merits of borrowing one of the school brooms when the sound of painfully familiar voices drew his attention. The cheers of admiration and support that reverberated through the room in response to their presence quickly drowned out their voices. Ron scoffed to himself as he heard Harry catch the crowd's attention and, after a reluctant thank you, diffuse their attention.

After surveying the room, the pair headed towards him. He slouched down in the armchair, hoping that they wouldn't see him.

Fortunately for him, they didn't seem to. Instead, they headed over to a nearby pair of available chairs and, with tired sighs, sat down in them.

"We need to find him," Hermione insisted. "Have you looked for the map again?"

"Yeah, but I still can't find it. I think Ron must've – "

"You should have chosen him, Harry. I know what Dumbledore said about relationships being complicated, but you had to have known that you were meant to bring Ron back."

"I know. I did know. I – "

"Things were just starting to get back to normal with Ron. It's not that I don't appreciate the gesture – I did and I do – but why _didn't_ you just bring him up with you?"

"Because I've been a crappy friend. Ron and I have had our issues, and you and Ron have had yours, but you've never left my side. I realised that when I was down there and found out that I could only bring one of you back up with me. It was an overreaction – it would have been easier to wait until I'd resurfaced – but I had to do something about it before I forgot why I needed to do anything in the first place."

Ron felt floored and devastated. Part of him wanted to go over to give Harry the chance to make his awkward apologies and then to respond in kind. It begged him to give them the chance to be best friends again and, even more, to be _better_ friends. The other part of him, however, was terrified at the prospect of opening up that can of worms and exposing himself to their slimy, repellent flesh. That way lay change and confusion and honesty and the potential for pain and sadness.

He wished that he could return to that moment on the jetty, where he'd stood with his friends and family around him and felt only relief and comfort. Not even the sound of Ludo Bagman and Madam Pomfrey bickering as they approached had been able to take that away from him.

Steeling himself, he pivoted the heavy armchair with the gracelessness of a giraffe trying to do a traditional Irish dance. When he was facing his erstwhile and perhaps once-again friends, he took a deep breath and said resolutely, "We need to talk."


	12. Part 1: The Daily Prophet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has subscribed to, left kudos for or commented on this, and to my lovely brother for being a full-time employee by day yet a beta reader by whenever-schedules-align. In my experience on both sides of the fence, beta readers are like superheros swooping in to save you from anxiety and indecision. I'd probably still be dithering on point allocation without his help.
> 
> Other than some paperwork I need to finish ASAP, uni's over for the semester. Results aren't out yet, but nothing's made me want to retreat to my room for the next few years, so all's well overall. When I finish organising that and a few other projects I've committed to, I'll finish brainstorming and writing the rest of this story.
> 
> Also, I totally had Jaime Lyn Beatty's voice from her portrayal of Rita Skeeter in AVPSY running through my head when I first wrote this.

**_Scandalous Seconds_ by Rita Skeeter**

Well, well, well, dear readers, I don't even know where to begin this time! Yes, I, _the_ Rita Skeeter, your humble and devoted reporter and truth-teller, am at a loss for words! Yours truly had a front row seat (not that they provided seats; see _Inadequate Provisions for the Media,_ page 5) to the shocking, scandalous Second Task of the Triwizard Tournament. And trust me when I say that I am not exaggerating _any_ of the scandals that arose at this morning's event.

Now, let me set the scene. The lake was glistening like a well-polished diamond on a young girl's finger, yet something sinister lay in its tranquillity; indeed, it looked rather akin to a physical embodiment of that good old metaphorical calm before the storm. Students and members of the public alike flocked to the water's edge, waiting to find out what exciting spectacle would be in store for them next. Chatter arose as possibilities were ventured and discussed; there didn't seem to be much that could top a dragon, but all and sundry were certain that the diligent, visionary organisers from the Departments of International Magical Cooperation and of Magical Games and Sports would find a way to push the box and the four - in one case _very_ \- young champions even further.

After all of the champions – including a flustered Harry Potter, who arrived at the last minute in a mimicry of the actions, if not the composure, of his late father – arrived, the noble adventurers dove into the lake.

And there they remained for approximately one hour.

One hour, indeed! We were summarily informed that the task that we had all been so eagerly anticipating called for the champions to overcome numerous natural hurdles to reach and retrieve their designated hostage from the lake's icy depths. Such a tale of heroism and bravery, of adaptability and resilience, was surely one that would be told throughout the ages – had, of course, the audience been able to see anything. It appears as if the highly experienced and acclaimed organisation committee members – consisting of, to name a few, Oberon Williams and Thomas Puck (see _A Midsummer's Nightmare,_ page 12) – had been so caught up in organising a unique and complex challenge and constructing the myriad obstacles for them to face that they harmlessly forgot to factor in the incidental goal of entertaining the audience.

Or so I am sure I would have been told had a member of the committee had actually agreed to give an interview. The way that the cry of, 'No comment!' is respected in this lovely little journalistic world of mine never ceases to amaze me, but I am afraid that it is not always as opaque as people believe. After all, there are sometimes only one or two reasons to refuse giving at least a brief comment...

So, what did yours truly do when faced with the arduous task of standing around for an hour while waiting for eight children to surface? Filled with the drive not to let any of my loyal readers down, I decided to do some investigating; there had to, I figured, be _some_ interesting story hidden among the not-so-captive audience, and all I had to do was find it. And, boy, did I find some.

Scandal the first: the line-up of hostages.

Following the time-honoured Triwizard tradition of pairing up champions with their beloveds but without the prevalence of early betrothals to do the work for them, the judging panel obviously decided to base their decision on who the champions' dates to the Yule Ball had been. It was hardly a surprise, therefore, to discover that the well-prepared Cedric Diggory's hostage was none other than Cho Chang. Some may have found it equally unsurprising that international Quidditch star Viktor Krum's hostage was to be Hermione Granger, but I – and, I expect, you, my readers – think differently. She apparently still has the Bulgarian firmly in her grasp, and it appears as if she's not letting go, despite, no doubt, making fangirls and the critical thinking among us worldwide question exactly what he sees in her. While I could ruminate upon this strange happening for hours, it is not that pairing that most gave me pause.

No; the real scandals of this task were that neither Fleur Delacour nor Harry Potter were paired with their Yule Ball dates. One anonymous Beauxbatons student casually mentioned how she had spotted Fleur Delacour and date Roger Davis getting a little _too_ friendly on the night. While Miss Delacour later contended that there had been foul forces at play, our source believed that Davis had, in that time-old bait-and-switch routine, accompanied her to the ball due to her Veela allure but, after enjoying the rush of clandestinely _being_ with her afterwards, determined that he had got what he wanted and was done with her. While my sympathies go out to Miss Delacour if this is indeed the case, perhaps she should reconsider attempting to ensnare gullible humans in the future. As her hostage is her younger sister, also a part-Veela, she may be heading in the right direction.

Parvati Patil, Harry Potter's lovely date to the ball, refused to comment on her experiences that night, but another inside source revealed that neither she nor Mr Potter appeared to be enjoying themselves. After completing the opening dance with the warmth and camaraderie of a pair of ice cubes, they retired from the dance floor and sat in silence alongside Ronald Weasley and his date, Miss Patil's twin sister, until the girls' attentions were secured by two unnamed older gentlemen, whom they cheerfully danced the rest of the evening away with while their erstwhile dates sat in quiet companionship. Understandably, Miss Patil was not the Hogwarts champion's hostage; instead, it was Mr Weasley who took that honour and braved the lake's depths for his friend.

Or, rather, his _friend_. In an interview while we were awaiting the return of the champions, Gryffindor darling Lavender Brown assured me most earnestly that, in her opinion, her friend and housemate Harry Potter had been so traumatised by the fleeting passion and duplicity of his beloved ex-girlfriend that he had sworn off of dating altogether. When added to the events of the ball – seeing his ex dance with the boy she had left him for and finding himself unable to find pleasure in his own date's company – and the interesting champion-hostage pairing, one must wonder if the decision had been to forgo girls in particular rather than dating in general. A taboo and ill-considered decision, perhaps, but one that is all too understandable; how many of us have done something foolish for love, or something stupid in an attempt to stave off heartbreak? In my honest opinion, the Boy Who Lived is merely culpable of childish error caused only by the pain dealt upon him by his uncaring ex-girlfriend.

Scandal the second: the return of the champions – and their hostages?

While Miss Delacour seems to be heading in the right direction in terms of whom she's associating with, it might have benefited her to take a compass into the lake with her; she didn't seem to be able to work out which direction is down, instead returning to the surface, empty-handed and shame-faced, after a mere fifteen minutes. It must be crushing and humiliating for her to have taken on the weight of representing girls and part-Veela alike only to have such a poor second showing. One can only hope that she finds her groove in the final task and finishes with, if not a bang, a respectable attempt for the trophy.

The second champion to resurface, fifty-five minutes into the task, was Harry Potter, supposedly determined to prove that heartbreak might knock him down but will never defeat him. It was impossible to tell whether his achievement was as impressive as his unconventional decision to fly to the egg in the last task, but, if his timing was anything to go by, his strategy was certainly effective. Of course, his ode to empowerment might have sounded a little louder had he brought back the correct hostage. Instead of retrieving his young 'friend' Mr Weasley, he emerged with his bushy-haired ex-girlfriend, who was later seen hugging and congratulating him. Was it orchestrated on her part in order to garner even more attention and present herself as even harder to keep once gotten, or was it a last-ditch effort on his part to get her back and break away from his recent unseemly ways? According to frequent interviewee Pansy Parkinson, 'Well, I could see it being either of those. I wouldn't put it past Granger to have started spiking Potter's drinks – or however she does it – again now that the publicity about her relationship with Krum is dying off a bit, but Potter's always had a flair for melodrama and I could definitely see him mistakenly attempting to win her back with a 'big romantic gesture' like this.' Mr Weasley refused to say anything on the topic other than that he was good friends with both Mr Potter and Miss Granger and that he was just glad everybody came out alright. Of course, his words were belied by the fact that he then excused himself to continue walking back to the castle alone. What is your opinion, dear readers? I firmly believe that this was all the part of a plan for one of them to win back the other, but who was the instigator, and were their motives pure?

Cedric Diggory was the next champion to arrive with his hostage, arriving one minute after the time limit had elapsed. His return offered a brief reprieve from the constant string of scandals that had been coming at us all morning as, despite being the least personally notable of the champions, he apparently had no trouble in identifying the correct hostage. He and his girlfriend were quickly subsumed by the usual throng of Hufflepuffs, making it impossible for me to reach them, but the way the two remained together while waiting for the final champion to emerge and results to be announced spoke of a sense of intimacy that few words can describe. While Miss Chang is still in her sixth year of school, Mr Diggory is nearing the end of his final year at Hogwarts; should we be awaiting an announcement from the young couple in the near future? After all, should Mr Diggory prove to be like the proverbial tortoise who, despite everyone ruling him out, escapes his own mediocrity to win the race, the closing ceremony might prove to be an opportune time for a certain question to be asked.

It is rather evident at this stage that the final champion to return was Viktor Krum. All were eager to see how he had adapted to the handicap that had been so needlessly thrust upon him. Despite arriving ten minutes after the time limit had elapsed, he appeared stoic and unbothered as he and his hostage emerged from the lake. One must, of course, question whether those few vital minutes were the result of confusion at the absence of any hostage whom one could reasonably have expected to be there for him to save. Apparently the suspected but unconfirmed theory that the part of Veelas that eventually attracts males starts off as a method of ensnaring protectors might have some truth to it, however, for the Bulgarian Seeker emerged with none other than Gabrielle Delacour. When later asked what it was that drew him to the French girl, he succinctly stated, 'Where I come from, you save little girls first.' A noble thought indeed, and the kind of mindset you would expect in a potential victor. It is inspiring to consider how well he is taking the news of Miss Granger's continued folly and manipulations; while she is bouncing back and forth between champions like a demanding, overactive child, it is the upright but blinded champions who suffer. One can only hope that Miss Granger is done with Mr Krum for good so that he may focus on finding someone who will appreciate his affections rather than making a mockery of them. Perhaps one of my loyal readers is up to the task of consoling him…

Scandal the third: the sacking of the Beauxbatons Headmistress.

Those involved are trying to keep this delectable little piece of gossip quiet, but it is impossible to get secrets passed me. While I was wandering along the jetty in the wake of the task, my feet may have taken me past certain not-to-be-named members of the French delegation in the midst of what appeared to be a _very_ intense conversation. Alas, they were speaking in French. Of course, language barriers have never stopped me before; a simple – and entirely legal – Translation Charm fixed the issue entirely, and I was privy to their rather interesting tête-à-tête. It seems that neither Michel nor Apolline Delacour were informed of their youngest daughter's involvement in the task and, upon realising that she was underwater, started on a warpath. Apparently, Headmistress Olympe Maxime initially evaded their questions, instead insisting that the twelve-year-old Gabrielle Delacour was entertaining a boy, before eventually revealing that she was in fact one of the hostages. The fiery Veela are, as many of you know, naturally adverse to water, so their protests focused on both her age and her heritage. For these reasons, they claimed that the witch was being wilfully negligent and therefore could not be trusted with the care or upbringing of the children of Beauxbatons Academy of Magic. While these are still early days and there are certain details that I have been forbidden to reveal for fear of jeopardising the judicial process, I can, to no great surprise, I am sure, confirm that Olympe Maxime will not be reprising her role as Headmistress of Beauxbatons Academy of Magic next year. I'll be poised at the edge of my seat for when I am able to disclose more, and assure you that I will be the first to inform you of it.

Scandal the fourth: the results.

In the wake of such chaos, people were, naturally, looking to see what the judges would decide. Would the Beauxbatons champion be disqualified for her failure? What about the famous – or, as some would paint him, infamous – Harry Potter? Would the judges decide that his competitors had been penalised by his decision? Would they decide that nothing at all amiss occurred down there? As the consultations went on, the crowd grew more restless. After spending over an hour having a chat with their friends, they didn't relish the thought of spending more time awaiting the announcement.

Fortunately, for I daresay the day might have ended in a revolt otherwise, the decisions were quickly made. It is with great relish that I convey those results to you.

In fourth place, on 27 points, was Miss Fleur Delacour. The judges decided that, despite her early withdrawal from the task, she displayed an excellent use of the Bubble-Head Charm and performed well when her natural handicaps were taken into account. Of course, one must wonder whether the decision was merely an attempt to keep the Delacours' ire away from the organising committee. If her Veela heritage did indeed handicap her, should they not have taken it into account when initially planning the task? If it were not significant enough for them to adjust the task in order to provide an equal playing pitch, was it really significant enough to impact on her performance to such an extent? In any case, it must have been a disappointing result for Miss Delacour; hopefully, the issue will be rectified by the next task.

In third place, on 42 points, was Mr Viktor Krum. As his merguard reported that the mix-up with the hostages did not substantially impair his progress, the judges did not take it into account when considering the penalty for his tardiness. However, although he failed to return within the time limit, this was somewhat modulated by his ability to quickly adapt to unexpected circumstances and the display of moral fibre in his choice of hostages. Furthermore, the judges determined that his use of partial human Transfiguration denoted a skilful and inventive approach to the task.

In second place, on 47 points, was Mr Cedric Diggory. He, like the Beauxbatons champion, made use of the Bubble-Head Charm. His journey was apparently fairly uneventful. Unfortunately, he too was marked down for returning after the time limit had elapsed.

And, scraping into first place with 48 points, was Mr Harry Potter. He was the only champion to use a plant-based rather than magic-based strategy, with the judges viewed as a clever and effectively simple method. Of course, one hopes that he took a supply of gillyweed down with him in case his initial dosage ran out. The judges were allegedly conflicted as to the effect that his decision to return with Hermione Granger should have on his score, but, ultimately, unanimously decided to give him high scores as he was also the only champion to successfully return within the allocated timeframe.

The judges were apparently incorrect in their assumption that the champions would need no direction as to whom to retrieve. Hopefully they will be more prepared for contingencies next time; while risk to competitors has always been an intrinsic part of the Triwizard Tournament, it is worrying when easily solved issues such as this are left unattended to. Risks should, after all, be the result of careful planning rather than potential negligence.

After such an eventful day, even I, self-professed seeker of the gritty reality and the scandals that people try to hide behind polite veneers, am knackered. I believe I am deserving of a nice glass of wine and a book. Of course, knowing my luck, I'll probably stumble across some big conspiracy behind the brand or author. (If I do, you will, as always, be the first to know.) After all, who knew that staring at a lake for over an hour could be so positively thrilling?


	13. Part 2: Viktor Krum

Staring into the bright eyes that the transfigured mirror reflected back at him, Viktor sighed in consternation. He had spent all morning trying to work out what to say, and he _still_ couldn't get it quite right. The gist of it was there in his mind; the actual words were being much more elusive. Every time he thought he had finally devised a suitable game plan, he noticed a hole in his defence or realised that he'd forgotten the very beginning of it. Playing sport required both training and an ability to improvise and adapt to others' actions, but there were so many potential pitfalls that he felt almost paranoid about the possibility of going in unprepared.

The hardest part was trying to anticipate the problems that the language barrier might cause. His time at Hogwarts had made it painfully obvious that, while some – like Hermione – were open to the idea of trying to circumvent particular barriers together, most of the people he came across expected him to handle the brunt of making communication worked. In their opinion, _he_ was the foreign one and, as such, _he_ should be the one to adjust to the new environment. It was generally nothing more than a minor grievance, but it did cause problems when, at times like this, effective communication was so vital.

But translating what he wanted to say from Bulgarian to English was proving to be extremely stressful. Words had so many subtle connotations, after all, and it was hard to keep a track of them in the heat of the moment. Given how severe the consequences of causing offense might be… His career would be safe; he was sure of it. But his personal life was at stake, which just made the whole situation that much harder.

His fans tended to assume that his international sporting success meant he was confident and assertive in all areas of life, but that was really a false equivalence. Sure, he was self-assured when it came to his Quidditch prowess, and his fame had forced him to reckon with the usual adolescent insecurities at a young age. That meant that he had a much higher, and much more secure, sense of self-esteem and dignity than most of his peers. While they concerned themselves with questions of career paths and futures and how they fit into the world, he already had all of that sorted out. Unfortunately, that still didn't mean he automatically felt comfortable in any possible situation.

Especially when the topic at hand was so potentially momentous.

_Just do it,_ he thought as he tore his gaze away from the reflection and, slipping his wand into his pocket, started to make his way out of the hull of the Durmstrang ship. _You're as prepared as you will ever be. At this stage, the anticipation is only making things worse._

* * *

The castle really was like a labyrinth. Its corridors and stairs twisted and turned – sometimes literally – as they were trying to stay his progress. His prior forays into its stone maze of a floor plan had usually been confined to the Great Hall and library, which could be accessed from the first and second floors respectively. Every time he had gone further, he had been accompanied by Hermione or one of the Slytherins. Those experiences, however brief, had been enough to elucidate how difficult navigating the castle's depths would be without an experienced guide.

That was why, upon entering the castle, he had immediately sought out assistance in the form of the redheaded girl whom he'd often seen studying with Hermione in the library and who, fortunately, had been talking to some of her friends in the entrance hall. They hadn't talked much, but he was familiar enough with her to know that she, along with knowing the way to Gryffindor Tower, was good friends with Hermione and could be trusted to keep a secret.

And, as an additional bonus, Ginny Weasley was one of the few people on the premises who, out of respect for both him and Hermione, would neither hit on nor fawn over him. She did, assuming that he was visiting Hermione, make some sly remarks about the two of them before eventually settling in to talk about other things, but he merely pretended that the innuendos were lost in translation.

"I read that you used to play with Efrozina Genov," she eventually said, abruptly redirecting the conversation from school to Quidditch.

"Yes," he confirmed, somewhat nervously. For all that he trusted her not to pry into his personal life, such lines of questioning usually resulted in a not-so-subtle inquiry about whether or not they'd ever dated.

"She's my role model," she continued. " _Witch Weekly_ did an interview with her once. They mostly focused on what it was like to be a female Quidditch player a male-dominated industry."

"She does know a lot about that."

"Well, yes. That's why I like her so much. My older brothers all play, but they've never let me join in because they're worried I'll get hurt." She lowered her voice until he had to lean in to hear her. "I've been sneaking out with their brooms for years, and I think I've gotten pretty good. Not as good as _Efrozina Genov_ , obviously, but – Well, she said that her parents didn't approve of her career path at first as they thought it would be too dangerous for a girl, and that's basically the arguments my brothers would use if they knew I was interested…"

"You want to know if I have any advice." At her eager nod, he added, "Why don't you try out for your house team? Your brothers can't stop you. If you get in, you get in."

Ginny rolled her eyes. At first, he pulled back in response, but her next words gave him reassurance that she was being self-depreciating rather than dismissive. "Because the boy I've had a crush on for years is on the team. I've gotten better at talking to him without having to run away to hide for days afterwards, but things like scoring a goal around him are still beyond me."

"Ah."

"Yeah."

"You know," he said, his voice contemplative, "I was self-conscious when I first started flying. I'm not very graceful on foot, and I knew people were waiting for me to mess up in the air, too. It got to my head. I was still good enough to play at school, but I was inconsistent."

"How did you deal with it?"

"I realised that I was more critical of me than they were. And I learned to block them out. I started to ignore the crowd and, when possible, my teammates. My focus was solely on catching the Snitch without getting knocked off my broom. With practice, I learned to interact with the others without feeling insecure. But, back then, I needed to do that first so I could get used to not caring about their judgements."

"I don't know if I'm ready for that yet," she admitted. "Not so suddenly, anyway. I'll try it with other things first so I can build up to it."

She fell quiet again, and he let the silence rest. He knew he had given her a lot to think about, and, meanwhile, he needed to refocus himself on the upcoming conversation with Potter.

_Draco Malfoy read the article out loud at the Slytherin table… No, that won't work. That would just start us off on a bad foot._ _I read the article… You chose to take Hermione back…_

"Here we are," Ginny cut in brightly, stopping outside a portrait of a black-haired lady bedecked in a white dress and a flower garland. "Do you want to come in, or do you want me to see if she's in there and ask her to come out? No one would mind if I let you in, but we both know they'll swarm us as soon as they notice you."

"Could you see if Harry Potter is there first?"

She blinked at him in surprise, before her eyes narrowed with suspicion and a surprising hint of ferocity. In that instant, he saw her go from an innocent little girl to a hardened defender with the speed it would have taken him to dive for the Snitch. If she played Quidditch with anywhere near as much passion and velocity as she glared at him, he had no doubt that she would eventually achieve her dreams. "You're not here to threaten him away from Hermione, are you?" Before he could reply, she continued, "Because they've been through a lot together. Like, _a lot_. I know he didn't make the smartest decision when he brought her back instead of Ron, but he's – If you knew what their lives have been like, you wouldn't blame him for being confused or punish her for it."

"I'm not here to blame or punish," he replied, torn between being hurt that she had been so quick to jump to conclusions about him and satisfied that Hermione had such a loyal friend. "I'm just here to talk. Everyone – Skeeter, the Slytherins – is saying things about him. I want to hear his side of what happened."

Looking like a self-titled bouncer at an under eighteens club, she surveyed him for a few more moments before nodding decisively. "Okay," she finally said, before walking backwards until she was near enough to the portrait to whisper the password at the featured lady. The portrait swung open. "Thank you again for the advice, by the way," Ginny added, and then she darted through the portrait hole.

As soon as she was clear of its path, the portrait swung closed once again. "She's right, you know," the tower's guardian said. "Those three have been through a lot. Don't you dare make things harder for them."

Viktor simply nodded. Although his intention really was just to talk to the younger wizard in the hopes of straightening things out, he couldn't promise that doing so wouldn't complicate matters for him. He took his word very seriously; he wasn't willing to jeopardise that by giving it out in cases where so many variables were outside of his control. When her gaze sharpened, however, he compromised by giving her a sincere, "I respect that."

Putting the encounter out of his mind, Viktor returned to rehearsing his opening line as he waited. Finally, the portrait opened again, and Harry Potter walked up to him.

"Er – hello. Krum."

"Potter."

"Can we go for a walk?"

"Alright."

They walked in silence. Viktor could tell that the younger wizard was tense, but false platitudes wouldn't help either of them. When they were far enough away from the tower so as to be out of hearing range, he stopped. "What happened down there?"

Harry, of course, instantly knew what he was talking about. "I honestly don't know. I know that sounds like a cop out, especially with what everyone's saying, but – "

"I don't care what the others are saying," Viktor cut him off. "Rita Skeeter is a liar; only a fool would trust her on this."

The boy nodded, looking somewhat more relaxed at the knowledge that Viktor wasn't holding him to the media's speculation on the issue. "It was stupid, really. Ron and I have been fighting all year, and I guess I just snapped. I should have waited to sort it out until we all got back, but I just felt like I had to act then and there, before I lost my nerve."

"Hermione told me Gryffindors are rash."

"We like to think of it as brave." A smirk played on his lips before abruptly fading. "It wasn't romantic, though. There's nothing between us."

"I know there isn't; I trust her. We wouldn't be dating if I didn't. But do you want there to be?"

Harry's face scrunched up in an expression of pure disgust that might have been offensive had it not been for his next words. "She's like my sister," he objected. "I don't have any actual siblings, so I guess I don't really know if it's what having a sister is like, but just the _thought_ of it…"

"That's all I need to know," Viktor said, his whole body relaxing at the confirmation. "You're her best friend. There is history there that I could never complete with. I trust her not to act on that while we're together, but I needed to know about you."

"You don't have to worry about me. I'm happy she's happy, and I'm even happier that that, er, _happiness_ doesn't involve being with me." Apparently noticing exactly how many times he'd used the same root word in one sentence, Harry smiled awkwardly.

"Good." They stood there, staring gawkily at one another, for a few moments before Viktor added, "Maybe we should get to know one another. We could go flying together."

"Really?" The boy's face lit up, a beaming smile spreading across his face.

Viktor shrugged. "Why not? Isn't the tournament supposed to be to improve international relations?"

"Yeah," he agreed with a sad smile that Viktor didn't quite understand.

Suddenly remembering the girl who had proven her loyalty and ability to keep a secret, and figuring that Ginny's brothers were unlikely to protest against her taking advantage of an offer to practice flying with him and her friend, Viktor added, "You could ask some of your friends sometimes. Just people who you know can keep a secret; Hermione, her friend Ginny, your friend Ron. Not all the time, or else we won't be able to talk much, but sometimes."

Harry laughed. "I don't know about Ginny, but Hermione definitely doesn't fly. She hates Quidditch and anything to do with heights."

"There's a difference between Quidditch and flying. Hermione said she passed the subject, even if she doesn't like to fly. Besides, she might say no, but it wouldn't hurt to ask them."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to everyone who has subscribed to, left kudos for, or commented on this – and, as always, to my lovely brother for beta reading this.
> 
> On the flying thing, I personally think that the first years didn't just have one flying class. Even if it had gone well, they wouldn't have learned much in such a short timeframe. I see it as more likely that it's an ongoing subject but that Harry was exempted from further classes because he was on the team.


	14. Part 2: Ginny Weasley

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some major personal things happened in the past two months, there was a scene in this chapter that I just couldn't seem to write, and everything to do with this fic ended up becoming a bad mental place for me, so I decided to take a massive step back for a while. I haven't started on the next chapter yet, but I'm hoping to be able to get back into it again soon.
> 
> Thank you, as always, to my wonderful brother for beta reading this for me.

Ginny settled back into an armchair and, closing her eyes to help herself focus, let her mind wander. Her plan for the evening had been to finish her part of a group project she was working on for Ancient Runes, but her brain was still aflutter from her conversation with Viktor Krum. He had been unexpectedly helpful; she hadn't expected him to be able to give her any practicable advice, but, knowing she would regret it if she let the opportunity to ask him about Efrozina Genov pass her by, had decided to ask him for help anyway.

And he had more than come through for her.

Growing up in such a boisterous and mischievous family meant that she had quite quickly learned how to demand or avoid attention as the situation required. Timidity and hesitation meant death in a place like the Burrow, so she had learned to be decisive and bold in everything she did. But, as a child, she had never spent much time with people outside her close family circle; there were more than enough Weasleys to keep anyone occupied, after all. All in all, it had lulled her into a state where she was confident around everyone she came into contact with and so never had to truly deal with nerves or self-doubt. She therefore hadn't been prepared to handle the anxieties that came with moving to Hogwarts, and so her first year had been full of vulnerability and confusion. That, in her opinion, was the main reason why Tom Riddle had been able to manipulate her so easily; her brothers hadn't had time for her, and she hadn't known how to behave around her classmates.

Since that tumultuous year, she had learned how to be herself around most of her peers, but she still became a nervous wreck whenever she came into any sort of contact with Harry Potter. Hermione had, after reading a bunch of Muggle psychology and sociology textbooks in the hopes of finding a way of helping her, advised her to deconstruct how she viewed the boy until she could see him as just another Gryffindor rather than as the storybook hero she'd been raised to view him as. The plan was, however, much, _much_ easier said than done.

In that context, Viktor's advice seemed almost revolutionary to her. Her strategy had been to view and treat all of her classmates as if they were simply more Weasleys, but that wouldn't work for Quidditch, where her brothers formed her biggest hurdle to success. So the idea of just forgetting about them altogether was so exciting and different and _radical_. It didn't solve all of her problems, of course, seeing as how Harry was on the team, so she would still have to learn to suppress the anxiety that cropped up whenever she was around him, but it gave her a place to start. A _good_ place to start. And that, however much her classmates would loathe the idea of forgoing an opening to ask for an autograph, was the most valuable thing he could have given her. She didn't know whether or not she would ever get to the stage of being able to play Quidditch near Harry – she often became clumsy in his presence, and _flying_ like that would be downright dangerous – but she resolved to try her best. If she could get over that, then she would easily be able to use her determination to prove her brothers wrong to spur her on in the team's tryouts.

For the time being, however, she just wanted to appreciate the sense of contentment that came from having received Quidditch advice from an internationally acclaimed sportsperson.

Slowly opening her eyes, she surveyed the room around her. Everyone – herself included – was still on a high from Harry's swift victory and what that meant for his chances in the final task. Every now and again, someone would break out in an excited retelling of the moment they realised that Harry was the first person back, which inevitably snowballed into group story-time everysingle time.

Two people, however, didn't look nearly as light-hearted. Hermione, perched on the very edge of an armchair, was vigorously writing on a piece of parchment, doing what appeared to be homework. Meanwhile, Ron was idly fiddling with chess pieces in his spot diagonally across from her. In hindsight, things had already appeared awkward between the three Gryffindors when Ginny had nervously approached Harry to tell him about Viktor. It had been as if they were seated as far apart from one another as they could while still technically being classed as sitting together.

Narrowing her eyes, Ginny quickly formulated a battle plan. Like she'd said to Viktor, she thought that the three friends had been through more than enough already, and she didn't like the idea of them having to deal with personal issues on top of that. Until that moment, however, she hadn't had the time to focus on _doing_ anything about it. She had spent the past few days vacillating between participating in the various impromptu celebrations, providing emotional support for Hermione, who had spent the day after the second task fretting about what it would mean for her friendship with both boys, and working on the stupid group project. Feeling like a Quaffle being tossed around between players to the point of exhaustion, she had been so caught up with everything that had been going on that she hadn't thought to check up on how her brother was going. _Dean or Seamus will have talked to him about it by now,_ she thought, _but I suppose I should, too._

While she empathised with Ron, she really thought he was overacting to what ultimately amounted to a simple mistake. It wasn't as if there had been a plaque stating who each hostage belonged to, after all, and even heroes could falter during times of pressure.

_Of course,_ she thought, glancing at her best friend's noticeably exhausted face, _I might be biased._

She glanced over at the twins, who seemed to be in the middle of an intense discussion with Lee Jordan, before deciding against involving them. They made keen and resourceful sidekicks, and their age and popularity gave them more sway over Ron than she had, but they had the unfortunate habit of taking over things. This was something that she had to do on her own.

Leaping up from her chair like a jackrabbit, she hurried over to their corner of the room, determined to put her plan into action immediately.

"Ron, want to come for a walk with me?"

Confusion passed over his face at her words. _No wonder,_ she thought. Despite how close in age they were, they never seemed to talk much during the school term. She didn't exactly function normally around Harry, after all, and he wasn't particularly fond of her friends.

"I – " Glancing down at the chess piece still clenched in his palm, he paused and nodded. "Sure. Where to?"

"Just around. I'll catch up with you later, Hermione."

"See you, Ginny… Ron."

"Yeah, see you," Ron replied noncommittally. "What is it?" he asked Ginny as they walked away.

"Wait until we're outside."

Neither sibling said anything more as they left the room. Ginny was aware that Ron was watching her intently, clearly wondering why it had to wait until they were alone. Her thoughts, however, were focused on where she could take him to ensure their discussion remained private. However frustrating her brothers could be, and however much she enjoyed embarrassing them in public, there were some lines that just weren't to be crossed.

"Let's go this way," she said when they finally cleared the portrait hole, and she led him off down a random hallway.

"What's this all about, then?"

"We need to talk. You know I love you, right, Ron? Despite how bloody annoying you can be."

"Er – yeah," he replied, not meeting her eyes as he fiddled with the cuff of his sleeve. Love was generally an unspoken assumption among the Weasley siblings; they squabbled and they teased and defended one another, but the one thing they never _ever_ did was put words to the affection that they all felt on some level.

"So you know that I'm trying to help you here. I – _ugh_ – want you to be happy."

"You do?" he asked, looking genuinely perplexed.

Exasperated, she rolled her eyes. " _Yes_. I do."

"Alright… But you still haven't told me what you want to talk about."

"About Harry and Hermione. A book I read a few weeks ago said the most important parts of any relationship are communication, forgiveness, and loyalty."

"You sound like Hermione," he cut in. "'A book I read.'"

"Well, she _did_ lend it to me," Ginny admitted. "Anyway, do you want me to get to the point or not?" Planting her feet firmly on the ground, she stuck her hands on her hips and waited for him to answer. Deep-hidden filial affection or not, Ginny was obstinate enough to make him concede before continuing.

"Er, yeah. Go on."

"My _point_ is that, while I know that what Harry did hurt you, you can't just give them the cold shoulder for it. Stop being such an idiot. _Talk_ to them about it. _Forgive_ them for it. _Stay_ even though it's hard."

"What are you talking about?"

Loosening her stance, she looked at him incredulously. "Isn't it obvious? Harry thought Hermione was his hostage; he took her up instead; you were embarrassed; you haven't forgiven them. What I'm – "

"I – "

" _What I'm saying_ is that you need to get over it. Like, sure, he hurt you. Do you think he meant to? Haven't you hurt him before? We've all hurt one another on _purpose_ before, but we've all moved on. I hurt you when I pushed you off your toy broom that time and you had to go to St Mungo's because you landed on your finger and Dad didn't know how to fix the break, and you forgave _me_. Fred and George hurt you when they turned your teddy bear into a spider, and you still talk to _them_. You hurt me when you ripped up my dot painting because it was better than yours, and, sure, I kicked a tantrum, but I still – "

"It wasn't because it was better than mine!" Ron snapped. "It was because you wouldn't stop pulling my hair and pinching me! Besides, I _have_ talked to Harry and Hermione. We've all forgiven each other, alright? And we _are_ sticking together."

"But, earlier, in the common room, you and Hermione – "

"Weren't talking? Just because we're still friends, it doesn't mean things are back to normal. Things are just… weird at the moment, that's all."

"Oh. Right."

"Why did you assume _I_ was the problem, anyway?"

"Hermione told me a few days ago that she and Harry both felt really bad about it," Ginny said, "so I thought – "

"That I was just being an idiot?"

Ginny blushed, the colour quickly spreading from her ears to her face until she resembled a ripe tomato.

"So, what, you _talked_ to them about it but you just went straight to _lecturing_ me? Right. Well, thanks for that." Brushing past her, Ron stormed back down the hallway, heading back towards Gryffindor Tower.

"Ron, I – I'm sorry for immediately assuming it was you, but you have to admit – "

Stopping at the end of the hallway, he turned around to face her. "Don't worry," he said. "I'll – what was it, again? – talk, forgive, and stay. It seems I'm not as much of an immature idiot as you think I am. But, right now, I want to be alone. Unless that's too _immature_ for you?"

Stunned, she didn't protest as he strode back towards the common room. It felt like her heart had dropped, the force of her shame and embarrassment pushing it out through its cage of bones and down to her stomach region.

_He wouldn't have been as mad if Fred and George had been the ones to talk to him,_ she thought bitterly, unable to accept the fact that Ron – _Ron_ , with his envy and immaturity and hotheadedness – had been more level-headed than she had. Surely it was something to do with him. He _would_ have accepted it better if it had come from the twins, she _knew_ that; perhaps that was the only reason he had scolded her like that?

But, try as she might, she was unable to shake the demoralising truth. For all of his very many faults, he hadn't been the one in the wrong.

_I should have just asked him._


End file.
